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GRANTS TOUR 

Around the WorlD; 

WITH INCIDENTS OF HIS JOURNEY THROUGH :> ^ 

ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, 

GERMANY, AUSTRIA, ITALY, BELGIUM, 

SWITZERLAND, RUSSIA, EGYPT, 

INDIA, CHINA, JAPAN, ETC, 

TOGETHER WITH A 

GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACES VISITED, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 
OF THE COUNTRIES, BEAUTIFUL SCENERY, INTERESTING INCIDENTS, 
ENTHUSIASTIC OVATIONS OF EMPERORS, KINGS, AND PEOPLE 
OF ALL CLIMES, CAREFULLY EDITED AND ARRANGED 
FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE NEW YORK 
HERALD; CONTAINING ALSO A GREAT 
AMOUNT OF USEFUL AND ENTERTAIN- 
ING INFORMATION COLLECTED 
FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

By J. F. PACKARD, 

AUTHOR OF " STANLEY IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA," ETC., BTCt 



RICHLY EMBELLISHED WITH NUMEROUS ARTISTIC ENGRAVINGS. 



THE ONLY COMPLETE AUTHENTIC ONE VOLUME EDITION PREPARED FROM LETTERS 
OF THE NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT WHO WAS BY INVITATION THE COM- 
PANION OF GENERAL U. S. GRANT IN HIS TOUR AROUND THE WORLD. 



SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. !(•> 



V>^ 1879 ^'^ 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM FLINTr""-" 

No. 623 Sansom Street. 

W. S. BRYAN, St. LOUIS, MO. 

R. D. S. TYLER & CO., DETROIT, MICH. 

1880. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1879, by 

J. F. PACKARD, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 






PREFACE. 



THE Editor of this work offers no apology for its appearance at 
this time. A work of this kind needs none. General Grant 
has made a tour around the world, and we have recorded the events 
which occurred and the sights which he saw. In its preparation, 
there has been within our reach, not only the letters of John Russell 
Young, who accompanied General Grant as correspondent of the 
New York Herald, but also much additional material ; hence the 
reader has not only all that is of any interest in John Russell 
Young's letters as originally furnished by him, but also a vast 
amount of valuable and entertaining information which we have 
drawn from other sources. We have made these additions because 
we believed that it would give the book a more finished appearance. 
In his letters, Mr. Young treated many points visited too briefly, 
while others were only mentioned by name ; in such cases we have 
been obliged to look elsewhere for information, and we are confident 
that we have succeeded in producing a book which is far superior 
in every way, than it would have been had we confined ourselves 
wholly to letters of a special correspondent. To place this material 
in proper shape, so as to form a readable volume, has been no easy 
task. How well we have succeeded, we leave the reader to judge. 

The work as it now appears is not only a faithful record of Gen- 
eral Grant's journey, but is a faithful portraiture of sights and 
scenes in the old world — a library of travel and adventure, a com- 
plete guide-book to Europe and the East, an encyclopaedia and 
gazetteer, all in one. 

Here are described in a very graphic manner the various cities 
visited, the countries passed through, the manners and customs of 



IV 



PREFACE. 



the people, while the appearance of the ruins of the old world is 
detailed in such a manner as to cause the reader to feel that he is 
reading about places which now exist, and that he is right there 
among them. We are told what kind of houses the people live in, 
the appearance of these houses both outside and inside, what the 
people eat, what they talk about, their ancient history, and all their 
general characteristics. 

Many very choice illustrations are inserted to assist in a better 
understanding of the text. Take, for example, the chapter describ- 
ing the visit to Jerusalem, which contains twelve superb illustra- 
tions in the text and one full-page engraving. These greatly in- 
crease the value of the work. They have been obtained by our 
publisher at great outlay, and we trust that the reader will appre- 
ciate them. 

^ " ^ J. F. P. 

Philadelphia, Pa, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Grant's Early Life — Enters "West Point — Gallant Conduct in the Mexican War — 
Marries — Leaves the Army— The Nation's Call — Grant Enters the Union Army 
— Stationed at Cairo — Vicksburg — Chattanooga — Made Commander-in-Chief — 
Lee's Surrender — General Grant becomes President — His Second Term — The 
Historian's Estimate of Him — Tour Around the World 17 

CHAPTER II. 

General Grant leaves Philadelphia — Enthusiastic Ovations — Across the Ocean — 
Interesting Incidents — Welcome to England — At Liverpool — Sights and Scenes 
in the Great City — A Tribute from the Press — An Incident. . , . .32 

CHAPTER III. 

Departure for Manchester — Grand Reception — Arrive in London — Epsom Races — 
The Banquet — The Service in Westminster Abbey — Pierrepont gives a Recep- 
tion — Kate Field tells Who was There — Olive Logan's DescriiDtion — A Mag- 
nificent Affair — A Letter from the General — His Impression of England. _ . 47 

CHAPTER IV. 

Grant attends an Exhibition at Bath — Reception at General Badeau's — Presented 
at Court — The Freedom of the City — An Interesting Ceremony — F^te at the 
Crystal Palace — Breakfast at George Smalley's — A Gathering of Brains — A 
fine Affair — Dinner with the Prince of Wales. 66 

CHAPTER V. 

Greeting from Ireland — At the London Royal Italian Opera — An Enthusiastic 
Welcome — Banquet by the Trinity House Corporation — In the Presence of 
Royalty — A A^isit to Windsor Castle — Reception by the Queen — An Eventful 
Occasion— Again at Liverpool — The Mayor's Testimony to General Grant — 
A Reception by the Press— The Welcome of the Mechanics — Grant's Opinion 
of the Laboring Man — The Banquet of the United Service Club — Departs from 
England. . 81 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER yi. 

PAGE 

The Party reaches Bi-ussels — Honors of the Belgian Capital — The Banquet at 
Palmer-Garten — Reception in the Zoological Garden— At Lucerne, Switzerland 
— At Berne — Geneva — Mer de Glace — By the Italian Lakes — Arrives at Copen- 
hagen — Back at London — Bound for Edinburgh — The Silent Man Talks — At 
the Scottish Capital — The Freedom of the City — Subsequent Events — At the 
Home of Sir Walter Scott. 96 

CHAPTER YII. 

General Grant Visits Glasgow — Ayr — Newcastle-upon-Tyne— Demonstration on 
the Town Moor — Banqiieting at Birmingham — A Visit to Brighton — En Eoute 
for Paris — Incidents by the Way — A Hearty Welcome — A Call upon Marshal 
MacMahon — An Interesting Interview— The " Figaro's " Eeport. . . . 116 

CHAPTER YIII. 

Grand Banquet by the United States Minister — Who Were There— The Menu — 
• The Reception — MacMahon's Dinner — The Grave of Thiers — The Banquet of 
the American Residents— A Grand Affair— The Toasts — Biography in a Nut- 
shell — The Genei-al's Reply — At the Italian Opera — The Gaulois Sjjeaks — A 
Visit to Prince Orloff— Mrs. Makay's Dinner — A Visit to Sevres — At Lyons — 
On Board the Vandalia — En Route for Naples, i 135 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Party Reaches Naples — Young's Letter — The Volcano as Seen from the City — 
The Road to the Mountain — Its Romance and History— The Ascent— Over- 
looking Pompeii — A Romantic Picnic on the Lava — Glimpses of Social and 
Political Life in Naples — An Interesting Journey 153 

CHAPTER X. 

A Day Among the Ruins of Pompeii — The City of Hannibal and Csesar — The Fall 
of Pompeii — Fortunes Favor the Brave — Centuries of Peace — The Visit to the 
Museum — The Villa of a Roman Patrician — Remarkable Apartments — Art in 
Pompeii — The Forum and Temples — The Temple of Isis — The Shows on Stage 
and Arena— Gladiatorial Displays — Pompeii as a Home — A Special Excavation 
for General Grant — An Interesting Visit 168 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Memories of Palermo— What the Government was Doing — Hope for Italy — 
Among the Islands of the Mediterranean — Impressions of Sicily from Palermo 
to Malta — En Voyage— Scylla and Charybdis — The Duke of Edinburgh's 
Salute — Scenes and Incidents 193 

CHAPTER XII. 

Hospitalities in Malta — The English Bands Play American Airs—" The Marquis " 
— A Little Gale — Sunshine and Land — Warm Welcome at Alexandria — Grant 
meets Stanley — From Alexandria to Cairo — The Khedive Receives General 
Grant— The Entertainment of the Consul-General 210 



CONTENTS. Vii 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PAGE 

General Grant and his Party — Life on the Nile — Night and Morning — Twilight 
on the Nile — Beautiful Scenes — Adventures During the Journey. . . . 232 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Arrival at Siout — Reception to General Grant— Friends on the Way — Donkey- 
Riding in the Desert — A Visit to Abydos — The Battle with the Sun — Tlie 
Fountain Head of Civilization — The Ruined City — Tombs and Temples Cen- 
turies Old — Home Again 251 

CHAPTER XY. 

Thebes— Luxor — Reception — The Memnon Statue— The Palace Temple of Ra- 
meses — Dinner at Luxor — On the Way to Karnak — Its Antiquity — The Lake 
of Death — The Legends of Walls— The Bad Nile and the Calamity it Imposes. 272 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Visit to Keneh— Egyptian Industry — Life Among the Egyptian Freemen — 
Ascending the River to the First Cataract and the Nubian Frontier — Assouan — 
The Philosophy of Presents — An Interesting Incident— A Man Avho Rides — 
Scenes in Ancient Bondage — Returning — A Visit to Memphis — The Sacred 
Bulls — Their Tombs — Back to Cairo — En Route for the Holy Land. . . 293 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Holy Land — Its Sacred Associations — General Grant's Visit — Landing at Jaffa 
— Through the Holy Land— Visit to the House of Dorcas — Ride to Jerusalem — 
Grant's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem — Ceremonies and Hospitalities — A 
Walk over the Via Dolorosa — A Visit to the Holy Places— The Garden of Geth- 
semane — Bethany — Mount Olivet^Mount Zion — Calvary — Touching Reflec- 
tions 315 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

General Grant at Damascus — Beyrout— Smyrna — A Famous City — Its Antiquity — . 
A Visit to Constantinople — The Appearance of the City — A Visit to the Sultan — 
He Presents General Grant with a Pair of Horses — Their Appearance — Grant's 
Other Presents— The Slave-Market — A Visit to the Bazaars — The Mosque of 
Sultan Ahmed — Athens — The Acropolis — Mars' Hill — Corintli — Syracuse — En 
Route for Rome. 339 

CHAPTER XIX. 

General Grant at Rome — Honors from King Humbert- Reception at Florence — 
Arrival at Venice — The City of the Doge— An Intei-esting History — The 
" Golden Book" — The Four Orders— Micheli Steno's Revenge— The Apostles 
and Evangelists — Milan, the Italian Paris — A Beautiful City — The Corso — ■ 
The Cathedral — The Religious Customs of the City — The Ambrosian Library 
— The Church of St. Ambrose — The Iron Crown of the Lombard Kings — Leo- 
nardo Da Vinci's " Last Supper "—The Arch of Peace — The Temple of Cre- 
mation — An Interesting Museum 357 



vm 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PAGE 

Geneva La Superba, — Its Standing Compared with other Cities — Genoa, Past and 
Present — The Armor-Maker of Doria — The " Gold- Workers " — The Strada 
degli Orefici — The Duomo — The Church of St. Matthew — The Monument of 
Cohimbus— The Gardens of Acqua Sola— The Villa Doria — Villa Pallavicini 
Eosazza — Theatre of Carlo Felice — An Incident — The Porto Franco. . . 381 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Back to Paris— The Exposition — Enjoying Paris Life — General Grant and the 
Prince of Wales Witness a Game of Polo — A Visit to Holland— En Route for 
Germany — At Berlin — The Plenipos — Interview with Bismarck — Reminis- 
cences of " Little Phil " — They Discuss America, Europe, and the War — Mot- 
ley's Prophecy — The Crown Prince Gives the General a Review in the Rain — 
Bismarck calls on Mrs. Grant— His Dinner to Grant — American and German 
Friendship Pledged over a Glass of Schnapps 405 

CHAPTER XXIT. 

En Route for Copenhagen— Fourth of July at Hamburg — General Grant's Ora- 
tion—The Black Forest — Copenhagen Reached — At Gothenburg, Sweden — 
Christiania — Welcome by the King — Arrival at Stockholm— St. Petersburg — 
An Interview with the Czar — Grand Dinner and Review — On to Moscow — 
Warsaw — Vienna — Dining with the Emperor — Return to Paris — Off for Spain. 425 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Message from the King of Spain — Glimpses of Spanish Life — Castellar's Greet- 
ing -Among the Pyrenees^- Arrival at Vittoria — Meeting the King — Conver- 
sation with General Grant — At Madrid— Welcome by Mr. Lowell — Recollec- 
tions of Madrid — New Life in the Capital— Lotteries in Spain — How They are 
Managed — What Becomes of the Spaniard's Money — Expenses of State — The 
Real Position of the King " 444 

CHAPTER XXiy. 

A Visit to the Escurial — A Dreary Road — History of the Place— In the Royal 
Apartments — The Library — A Gloomy Place — The Court of the Kings — The 
Escurial Church — The Sanctuary of Pvclics — The Tomb of the Kings — The 
Grandeur of the Church — Mercedes, Bride and Queen — The Grand, Gloomy 
Home and Grave of Philip II • 464 



CHAPTER XXV. 

General Grant at Toledo— The City of the Roman, the Goth, and the Moor— Med- 
iajval Memories — Monuments of Early Christianity — The Cathedral — He- 
brew Memories— The Treasures of the Cathedral— Farewell to Toledo— A 
Visit to Pau— A Grand Hunting-Ground — A Meet on a Frosty Day — The 
Finish — A Short Hunt — A Happy Occasion 485 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XXVI. " ,,,, 

PAGE 

General Grant in Lisbon — Interview with the King — The Great Earthquake — 
Lisbon as it is— Tlie King as a Shakespearian Scholar — Beautiful Cintra — 
The Contrast Between Portugal and Spain — The Spanish Bull-Fight — How 
Bull- Fights are Conducted in Portugal — Gentler Aspects of the Show. . . 608 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

General Grant Returns to Spain — A Visit to Cordova— The Famous Mosque — The 
History of the City — Seville — A Chat with Montpensier — Memories of Seville 
— Modern Life in the City — Cadiz — Dream Life — Land and Sea — The Beautiful 
City— The Angelus Bells 532 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

General Grant Visits Gibraltar — Sailing over tlie Memorable Trafalgar — Gibraltar 
as a Classic and Modern Town— Ancient Memories of Gibraltar — How the Moor, 
Spaniard, and Englishman have Struggled for the Eock — General Grant and 
Lord Napier — An American Welcome — A Pieview and Sham Battle — The 
Ainerican General's Opinion of British Soldiers 548 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

En Route for Ireland — Arrival at Dublin — Reception by the Lord Mayor — Ban- 
quet to General Grant — Breakfasting with the Viceroy— Banquet at the 
"Mansion House" — General Grant's Speech — The Refusal of Cork to Enter- 
tain the General — The Reasons Given — General Sherman Speaks — A Visit to 
Londonderry — The Freedom of the City — Dining with the Mayor — Seeing the 
Sights — Reception at Belfast— Back to Dublin — Farewell Scenes — Off for Lon- 
don — Paris — Reception Given by the American Legation — Preparing to Start 
for India — The Party — Farewell to Europe 561 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Passage from Marseilles to Alexandria — Down the Red Sea — Aden — Bom- 
bay — ^The Reception of General Grant— Life in India — A Visit to the Caves of 
Elephanta— Reception at the Government House — Farewell to Bombay — Ar- 
rival at Jeypoor — Tlie Maharajah's Reception — A Nautch Dance— Visit to the 
Ancient Palace of Amber — The Home of an Ancient Indian King— An Inter- 
esting Occasion 574 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Jungles of Jeypoor — The Colonel Tries his Skill at Boar-Hunting— The Visit 
to Bhurtpoor — The Ruins of Futtehpoor Sikra — Arrival at Agra — The Taj — 
The General Effect of the Mausoleum — Inside the Palace — An Entertainment 
and Farewell — A Hindoo Puncli and Judy Show — Off for Delhi. . . 597 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Delhi — First Impressions of the City — The Palace of the Grand Mogul — The 
Throne of Aurungzebe — The Peacock Throne — Moslem Vandalism — The Ku- 



iES>-=« 



X .CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

tab — The Visit to Lucknow — The Scene of the Sepoy Rebellion — Missionary 
Eiforts — Benares, the Sacred City of the Hindoos — Macaulay's Description of 
it— A City of Priests— Its Temples— The Sacred River. . . . .617 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Arrival at Calcutta — Reception by tlie Consul-General — The Government House 
— The City — Religious Progress — General Grant at the University — The Money- 
Cliangers of India — The Reception by the Viceroy — A Picnic at Barrackpore — 
Remnants of Indian Splendor — Refugees from Burmah — Farewell to Calcutta 
— Reception of General Grant at Burmah — Rangoon — The Hindoo Faith — 
The Golden Pagoda. 638 

CHAPTER XXXiy. 

Sailing Down the Straits of ^lalacca — Farewell to India — A Visit to Siam — A 
Letter from the King — Almost an Accident — Impressions of Bangkok — The 
Venice of the East — Lauding in Bangkok— A Visit to the Ex-Regent — The 
Regent — The King — A Royal Visit— Interview Between the General and the 
King — State Dinner at the Palace— Speech of the King of Siam — The General's 
Reply — Farewell to the King - . . . . 654 

CHAPTER XXXy. 

En Route for Canton — The Reception at the Viceregal Palace — A Chinese Tea- 
Party — Eating with Chopsticks — The Viceroy Gives a Dinner to General 
Grant — How to Dine in China — Curious Dishes — Farewell to the Viceroy — 
Canton — The Five Hundred Disciples of Buddha — Canton Streets — Street 
Sights— The City— Its History 678 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A Visit to Macao — The Grotto of Camoens — The Author of " Lusiad "— Hong 
Kong — Address of Welcome — A Strange Ceremony — A^isit to Swatow — Hospi- 
talities of the Island— Amoy— Shanghai — A Hearty Welcome — Procession to 
the Consulate — The City en Fete — A Beautiful Scene — Tientsin — The Viceroy 
— His Address of Welcome — The General's Response — A Fete-Champetre. . 694 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Concerning Pekin — Boat-Life on the Peiho— Embarking for Pekin — The End of 
the Journey — The American Legation — Visit to Prince Kung — Welcome by 
the American Colony — Grant's Reply — The Reception by the Prince — A Chi- 
nese Entertainment — The University. . 718 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Prince Kung Returns General Grant's Visit — A Remarkable Conversation — The 
Loochoo Islands— General Grant becomes a Messenger of Peace — The Situa- 
tion — How Japan has Treated China — War not Desired — How Japan Captured 
Loochoo— What China Wants — The Disputed Territory. .... 732 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

PAGE 

General Grant and Party Visit the Great Wall of China — Along the Mongolian 
Coast — The Farthest Point of the Journey — A Midnight Salute — Farewell to 
China — Bound for Japan — Nagasaki — Landing and Reception — Address of the 
Governor — General Grant's Reply — A Japanese Dinner — Music is Introduced 
— A Magnificent Affair 743 

CHAPTER XL. 

Arrival at Yokohama — Honors to General Grant — Welcome at Tokio — The Gen- 
eral's Residence — The Reception — The Imperial Palace and Court — The Em- 
peror and Empress of Japan — The Royal Address of Welcome — The Response 
— Celebrating Fourth of July — A Grand Review — An Imperial Breakfast — The 
Emperor Visits General Grant — An Interesting Conversation — General Grant's 
Advice Concerning the Loochoo Question — Education in Japan. . . . 761 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Honors at Tokio — Farewell to Japan— En Route for San Francisco — Preparations 
for Grant's Reception — The First Glimpse of the Steamer — The Entrance of 
the City of Tokio — The Landing — The Mayor's Address of Welcome — A Grand 
Procession — A Magnificent Scene — At the Palace Hotel — A Grand Chorus — 
A Clamoring People —General Grant Speaks — Later Honors — A March of Peace 
—The End of a Wonderful Journey. 782 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

A FiiJfE Steel Poeteait of Geneeal U. S. Geant . Frontisinece. 

The Battle of Palo Alto - . .19 

Landing at Veea Oetjz 21 

Grant at Molino del Eey 23 

Battle at Lookout Mountain 25 

American Line Steamer "Indiana" . . . . . ' . .32 

The Steamer "Twilight" 35 

The " Indiana " going to Sea, as seen from Cape Mat . . .36 
Areital of the "Indiana" at Queenstown . . . . . .39 

Scene on the Mersey, near Liverpool. . .41 

Manchester, England 48 

Scene on the English Coast .50 

Bath, England • . . 67 

Lombard Street. , . . 71 

The Trinity House 83 

Green Park 85 

Geeman Castle. . ." .'96 

Bingen on the Ehine . . .98 

A Scene in Switzerland 99' 

Bridge and Ravine in the Swiss Mountains 108 

Lake Maggiore, Italy . 104 

Lake Como, Italy 106 

A Fortification near Edinburgh 109 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll 

PAGE 
FOETEESS AT DxTNDEE 114 

A Scene in Meleose. 115 

Ship-Btjilding on the Clyde . . 117 

Teafalgae Sqttaee . . 121 

Palace of the Ttjileeies and Lotjvee, Paeis ..... 125 

Palais dtt Ooeps Legislatif, Paeis '189 

Palace of Pontainebleau, Paeis 147 

A Distant Yiew of Yesuvixjs . . 154 

Battle of Mount Yesuvitjs ,. . .157 

The Heemitage. . . ■ 164 

EUINS AT PoMPEn 173 

A House in Ancient Pompeh. . . . ; . . . .176 

A Temple in Pompeii 183 

EuiNS of the Theatre at Pompeii 185 

Gladiatoes in the Aeena. . . • 187 

Gladiatoes Fighting with Beasts 189 

Paleemo 194 

Sicilian Eobbees 196 

City of Malta 201 

EuiNS AT Malta 207 

Ho use-Top and Battlements at Malta 211 

An Egyptian Casement 215 

Yiew of Oaieo, Egypt, feom the Citadel 221 

Alexandeia 224 

An Oeiental Bazaar . 233 

Easteen Donkeys . . . . . . . . . . . 235 

Yiew of the Eiver Nile 237 

■Tomb of the Kings. . . • . . 252 

Geoup of Bedouins. . * . . 255 

Egyptian Euins 258 

Pasha Yilla Occupied by Geneeal Geant 259 

Euins of the Temple at Abydos 265 



XIV ■ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Ruins at Thebes . 267 

Temple Ruins at Thebes 273 

The Obelisk at Luxoe 276 

Egyptian Architectuee 279 

The Plains of Thebes 281 

Kaenak 286 

Avenue of Sphinxes at Kaenak 287 

Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscription — " Egyptian Warriors Hasten- 
ing TO Battle " 288 

Egyptian Hieroglyphic Inscription — " Storming a City." . . 290 
Egyptian Hleroglyphio Inscription — "The Besieged City." . . 291 

Potter at Work 295 

An Arch near Keneh 297 

Sacred Bulls 309 

The Plains of Memphis 311 

Jaffa .317 

Peasant Women of the East 318 

Eamleh . . . . ^ 319 

Churning in the East . . . . 321 

Jerusalem on the Site of Solomon's Temple 324 

An Eastern Dining-Room " . . 326 

Via Dolorosa 327 

David's Tomb, Mt. Zion 329 

Valley of Jehoshaphat 331 

Scene on the River Jordan 333 

Bethany 335 

Bethlehem 336 

The Mount of Ascension . . . 337 

Dancing-Girl of Damascus 340 

Exterior View of a Turkish House 343 

Constantinople 344 

Interior View of a Turkish House 346 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV 

PAGE 

The Stallions Presented to General Grant by the Sultan of 

Turkey 348 

City of Athens 351 

The Acropolis at Athens . . . . ^ 353 

The Theatre at Bacchus 354 

Corinth 355 

General Grant's Eeception at Eome 357 

St. Peter's, Rome. Seats 54,000 People . . ' . . . . 360 

Old Eoman Colosseum 361 

Roman Gladiators ........... 362 

Roman Gladiators 363 

Venice . 365 

A Mountain-Pass in Germany . 426 

A Scene in the Black Forest 430 

A Mountain-Pass in Norway . . . 433 

Oronstadt, the Port of St. Petersburg 434 

Cathedral of St. Basil, Moscow 437 

' Admiralty Square, St. Petersburg 439 

General View of the Kremlin, Moscow 440 

Equestrian Statue of Peter the Great 441 

A Group of Spanish Ladies 447 

Public Square, Ancient Madrid 452 

The Mountains Through which the Road to the Escurial lies . 465 

The Jews of Toledo 488 

Jewish Synagogue 492 

The Battle of Toledo 496 

A Roman Watch-Tower Overlooking Lisbon 509 

Lisbon • . . . . 510 

The Spanish Armada 511 

The Vicinity of Cintra, as Seen from a Lofty Tower . . . 520 

The Mosque of Cordova 533 

Scene near Seville . 540 



XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 

PAGE 
The MEDITEEEANEAiSr FEOM A DISTANCE 549 

The Assault upon Gibraltar 553 

General Grant En Route for India 575- 

The Suez Canal 577 

The Red Sea Entrance to the Suez Canal 578 

Mount Sinai 579 

The Maharajah's Standard-Bearer 587 

The Maharajah's Chief Musician 588 

Colonel Grant Hunting the Wild Boar 599 

Ruins of Futtehpoor Sikea 606 

The Taj. — " The most Beautiful Building in the World " . . 611 

The Mogul's Palace, Delhi 621 

A Buddhist Temple at Benares 633 

Money-Changer of India 641 

The Refugees from Burmah 647 

Scene on the Meinam above Bangkok 660 

The King's Chief Counsellor . .662 

One of the King's Body-Guard . 668 

One of the Officers of the King of Siam 668 

Dancing- Woman of Siam 673 

The Queen op Siam 676 

Amoy 697 

The Tea-Gaedens of Shanghai 701 

Sending Written Prayers to Heaven by Burning them . . . 705 

The Bridge at Pekin 725 

A Japanese House of the Bettee Class 765 

A Temple 'at Yokohama 773 

The City of Tokio neaeing the Golden Gate, as seen from the 
" Cliff House " 783 



grants tour 
Around the World. 



CHAPTEE I. 

HIS EAKLY LIFE ENTEES WEST POINT GALLANT COST- 
DUCT IN THE MEXICAN WAR MAEEIES LEAVES THE 

ARMY THE NATION'S CALL GRANT ENTERS THE 

UNION ARMY STATIONED AT CAIRO VICKSBURG 

CHATTANOOGA MADE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF LEE's 

SURRENDER GENERAL GRANT BECOMES PRESIDENT 

HIS SECOND TERM THE HISTORIAN'S ESTIMATE OF 

HIM TOUR ROUND THE WORLD. 

In the early part of the Kebellion, the venerable 
General Scott remarked : "I don't understand this war. 
I never knew a war of this magnitude that did not throw 
to the surface some great general. We have had splendid 
fighting, but no damage has been done. Both armies 
have drawn off in good order at the close of a conflict, 
ready to begin the next day. Such fighting must be 
interminable. Somebody must be destroyed. The enemy 
must be spoiled ; his means of warfare taken from him. 
I must make an exception in favor of that young man out 
West. He seems to know the art of damaging the enemy 
and crippling him." 

The young man referred to was General Grant, who 
afterwards proved himself to be the "great general" which 
General Scott had expected the war would develop. 

2 17 



18 GRANT'S TOUR 

Let us see who General Grant was : 

He was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, in 
the State of Ohio, April 27th, 1822. His grandfather 
desired that he might be called Hiram, while his grand- 
mother was equally desirous that he should be called 
Ulysses, after the Grecian hero ; so the matter was 
compromised by calling him Hiram Ulysses. His father 
was by trade a tanner, and Ulysses was early initiated 
into the mysteries of the trade. At that period, the 
facilities for obtaining an education were not as good as 
they are now, and thus that of young Grant was very 
limited, and so " he grew up a sturdy youth, differing 
little from scores of hard-working young men around 
him." 

When eighteen years of age, he succeeded in obtain- 
ing an appointment in the Military Academy at West 
Point, through the influence of Mr. Hamer, member of 
Congress from the district in which Grant's family lived. 
When Mr. Hamer presented his name for cadetship, by 
mistake he wrote the name, Ulysses S. Grant, and his name 
was so entered on the books at West Point. As Ulysses 
Simpson Grant he pursued his studies, graduated, and 
has since been known throughout our land. " He labored 
under great disadvantages, in comparison with many 
young men in his class, in his want of knowledge of the 
preparatory studies which they possessed. He made up. 
however, for all deficiencies in this respect, by his close 
application and perseverance." He graduated at West 
Point, in 1843, the twenty-first in his class. He was 
appointed brevet second lieutenant in th'e Fourth Regular 
Infantry, at that time stationed at Jefferson Barracks. 
He immediately joined his regiment, and in the following 
spring he moved with it up the Red River, to do frontier 
duty. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



19 



In 1845, at the commencement of our difficulties with 
Mexico, Grant and his regiment accompanied General 
Taylor to Corpus Christi, as a part of the "Army of 
Occupation." Soon after, he was promoted to a full 
second lieutenant. Grant's active military life began in 
1846, when war was declared by Mexico against the 
United States. He accompanied General Taylor in his 




BATTLE OF PALO ALTO. 



march from Point Isabel, and took an active part in the 
battles of Resaca and Pal(^ Alto. When the army passed 
into the interior, his regiment accompanied it, and took 
part in the battle of Monterey. 

Soon after this, his regiment was transferred to the 
command of General Scott, and he was appointed quarter- 
master of his regiment. Soon after, they took part in the 
battles between Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico. He 
distinguished himself at Molino del Key, and was 
appointed brevet first lieutenant. His bravery at Cha- 



20 GRANT'S TOUR 

pulte|)ec caused him to be appointed brevet captain, and 
to be honorably mentioned in the dispatches. 

When the war was over, his regiment returned to the 
United States, and was soon after stationed at Detroit. 
Shortly after his return, he was married to a Miss Dent, 
of St. Louis, Missouri. From Detroit he was transferred 
to Sackett's Harbor. At a later period, a force being 
sent to Oregon, he accompanied it, and while at this post, 
received, in 1852, a full commission as captain. In the 
following year he resigned his commission, and settled on 
a small farm, near that of his father-in-law, a short 
distance from St. Louis. Here he remained for a time, 
but when, a few years later, his father invited him to go 
into the leather trade with him, he at once availed himself 
of the opportunity, and moved to Galena, Illinois, in 
1859 ; and " Grant & Son, Leather Dealers," became 
well-known in their line of business. 

He was quietly 23ursuing his business when the news 
of the fall of Fort SumjDter startled the land, and fired 
him with his old military enthusiasm. In the attack 
which had been made, he saw the old flag, for which he 
had often risked his life, imperiled. With the spirit of a 
true patriot, he exclaimed : " Uncle Sam educated me for 
the army ; and although I have served faithfully through 
one war, I feel that I am still a little in debt for my 
education, and I am ready to discharge it and help put 
down this rebellion." He was invited by the Governor 
of his State to assist in organizing the quota demanded of 
that State, he taking the rank of Adjutant-General. He 
assisted in raising the necessary men, but did not' accept 
the position offered him; and when Governor Yates 
proposed to send his name to Washington for the 
appointment of Brigadier-General, Grant nobly replied : 
" I do not ask for promotion ; I want to earn it" 



AROUND THE WORLD, 



21 



In June, 1861, he was appointed Colonel of the 
Twenty-First Illinois Eegiment, whose previous colonel 
had been forced to resign because he could not manage it. 
Although the men were at first disposed to laugh at their 
new colonel, yet they soon found that he was not to be 
trifled with, and he had been accustomed to obedience. 
He was at first sent into Missouri, but soon after, having 




LANDING AT VERA CKUZ. 

been made Brigadier-General, he was assigned to the 
district of Cairo. In this position he made an attack 
upon Fort Donelson, which capitulated. 

Soon after this, Grant's district was enlarged, and 
called that of West Tennessee, the Tennessee River form- 
ing its southern boundary. He was also raised to the 
position of Major-General. 

In December, 1862, he began an attack upon Vicks- 
burg. He at first attempted to carry the place by assault. 



22 GRANTS TOUR 

but failing in this, lie saw no other method than to settle 
down before the place in regular siege. This resulted in 
the unconditional surrender of the city and all its military 
investment'5. 

Soon after this, he engaged at Orchard Knob, Lookout 
Mountain, and Chattanooga. An Indian chief who was 
among Grant's troops during the battle at the latter point, 
thus describes his impressions of him : " It has been a 
matter of universal wonder that General Grant was not 
killed, for he was always in front, and perfectly heedless 
of the storm of hissing bullets and screaming shells flying 
around him. His apparent want of sensibility does not 
arise from heedlessness, heartlessness, or vain military 
affectation, but from a sense of the responsibility resting 
on him when in battle. When at Einggold, we rode for 
half a mile in the face of the enemy, under an incessant 
fire of cannon and musketry ; nor did we ride fast, but on 
an ordinary trot ; and not once, do I believe, did it enter 
the General's mind that he was in danger. I was by his 
side, and watched him closely. In riding that distance, 
we were going to the front, and I could see that he was 
studying the positions of the two armies, and, of course, 
planning how to defeat the enemy, who was here making 
a desperate stand, and slaughtering our men fearfully. 
Koads are almost useless to him, for he takes short cuts 
through fields and woods, and will swim his horse 
through almost any stream that obstructs his way. Nor 
does it make any difference to him whether he has 
daylight for his movements, for he will ride from 
breakfast until two o'clock next morning, and that, too, 
without eating. The next day he will repeat the same, 
until he has finished the work." 

In acknowledgement of the victory gained, the Presi- 
dent addressed Grant as follows : 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



23 



" Washington, December 8th. 

" Majok General Grant : 

" Understanding that your lodgment at Chattanooga and 
Knoxville is now secure, I wish to tender you and all under 
}Our command my more than thanks — m.^ profoundest gratitude 
lor the skill, courage, and perseverance with which you and they, 
over so great difficulties, have effected that important object. 
God bless you all. "A, Lincoln." 

Congress also voted him a medal, and the different 
Legislatures passed a vote of thanks, and the people 




GRANT AT MOLING DEL KEY. 



began to demand that he should be made commander-in- 
chief of all the armies. In answer to this demand, a bill 
was passed creating the rank of Lieutenant-General ; and 
soon after the President sent in Grant's name for the 
office, and it was agreed to bestow it upon him. 

Grant at once proceeded to Washington, and on the 



24 GRANT'S TOUR 

9th of March, 1864, met the President at the White 
House, in the presence of his Cabinet and General 
Halleck. In presenting him his commission of Lieu- 
tenant-General, President Lincoln expressed his confi- 
dence in him, and said : " As the country here trusts you, 
so, under God, it will sustain you." Grant, after paying 
a compliment "to the noble Union armies," ended by 
saying : " I feel the full weight of the responsibilities 
devolving upon me, and I know if they are met, it will 
be due to those armies, and, above all, to the favor of 
that Providence which leads both nations and men." 

A prominent historian says : " All felt that a new era 
was now to commence. Congress, in creating the rank, 
confessed that it had interfered quite long enough in the 
conduct of military affairs, and thought the Cabinet 
had, too. The Secretary of War saw in it that the 
country was tired of his management, and that hereafter 
he must confine himself to the appropriate duties of his 
department, which he knew so well how to perform. 
The new strategy he had introduced, to move immediately 
on the enemy's works, had had its full and bloody trial, 
costing the country probably a hundred thousand men. 
The ruling politicians had become alarmed. Setting out 
with the determination to control the war, they began to 
see that under their management the country would soon 
get sick of it altogether ; and hence, if they did not want 
to break down utterly, they must place its conduct 
exclusively in military hands. There was a general 
sentiment that they dare not lay their hands on Grant, 
for with his removal there seemed nothing but chaos 
beyond." 

Assuming command of the Armies of the Union, 
General Grant at once commenced a series of operations 
which resulted in the downfall of Richmond and the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



25 



surrender of General Lee. This last event occurred on 
the 9th of April, 1865, just one year and one month after 
he had assumed command of the entire army. 

When General Grant received the sword of General 
Lee, he contemplated it a moment, and then handed it 
back, saying : " It could not be worn by a nobler man." 
He spoke the truth — a nobler man than General Lee 




BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 



never lived. He may have been mistaken in his 
choice of what he believed to be right, but he always did 
that which Christian duty seemed to dictate. Grant 
considered him every whit a hero, and treated him as 
such. A Southern historian, referring to the surrender 
of Lee wrote : " The victors were magnanimous ; they 
abstained from every appearance of insult toward the 
vanquished. Abundant victuals were distributed to 
prisoners, who were dying of hunger." 



26 GRANT'S TOUR 

Thus the victor proved himself to be also a gentle- 
man. The people felt proud of him, and when, in the 
fall of 1868, they met at the ballot-box to elect a new 
Pre.^ident, they selected him as the one above all others 
that they desired to rule over them. He resigned his 
position as commander of the United States Army, and 
on the 4th of March, 1869, took his oath of office, and 
entered upon his duties as President of our E,epublic. 
And again, in the fall of 1872, they gave new evidence of 
their confidence in him by electing him to a second term. 
Thus for eight years he was President of the United 
States. 

A popular writer thus refers to General Grant and his 
abilities : 

" By common consent. General Grant to-day is one of 
the ablest rulers in the world. He is one of the few men 
that occasionally come to the surface, in spite of all adverse 
surroundings. The opinion of politicians and demagogues 
is one thing ; that of the world is another. By common 
consent. Grant stands among the great miltary captains 
of the earth. He won his way by his own sword. He 
built on no man's foundation. He entered into no man's 
labor The hour that connected his name with our 
armies was the blackest. Public confidence had well- 
nigh died out. No plan succeeded. Defeat and disaster 
attended our arms everywhere. Grant had no patron ; 
no great friend ; no one politically to lend him a helping 
hand ; no eminent relations to speak a good word for him. 
His manner did not win confidence, nor promise success. 
There was no one near him when he started to recognize 
in the silent youth the coming man. Snubbed by officials, 
grinned at by porters, sent to a common clerkship to get 
him out of the way, — he began his career. He took 
whatever was offered him. He began on the lowest 



ARO UND THE WO RLD, 27 

round of the ladder, and won liis ascent by dogged 
obstinacy. Thousands would have left the army and 
cursed the ingratitude of Republics. But Grant knew 
that he had ability ; knew that the time would come when 
that ability would be needed and acknowledged. He 
fought more battles, commanded more men, took more 
spoils, gained more victories, captured more prisoners, in 
six years, than Napoleon did in twenty. ^ 

" Grant will live beside Washington. And when the 
animosity of political life shall be forgotten, and the great 
services he has rendered to his country in the field and 
in the cabinet shall be fully recognized, he will be an 
example to young men in all coming time. A young 
man without money, without a patron, with no opening, 
wholly unknown to fame, he has carved his name in 
imperishable letters on the facade of the Kepublic. His 
old commander at West Point, when Grant was a cadet, 
waited for his orders. The greatest generals of modern 
times were proud to have fought under him. He wrote 
dispatches on his saddle-cloth that all Europe waited in 
breathless silence to read, — dispatches that rank with the 
ablest that Monk or Wellington ever penned ; granting 
to a fallen foe terms of surrender so honorable and so 
humane that the world wondered ; making for himself a 
name as well known to European courts as that of Fred- 
eric the Great, or Moltke. 

" He is one of the few men born to command. Cool, 
sagacious, clear-headed ; his few words, and those right to 
the point, brought him to the front everywhere. From 
the moment he first appeared in the war, his views differed 
from those of all other generals. Halleck reproved him, 
and telegram after telegram followed him from the War 
Department, censuring hun for his mode of doing things. 
Committees; generals and secretaries opposed his plans. 



28 GRANT'S TOUR 

But self-reliant and defiant, he pursued liis own course. 
During the whole campaign, he called but one council of 
war. In that council every officer but one opposed his 
plan. He carried out his own views, and won. His 
famous expression, 'I shall fight it out on this line,' 
was drawn out in consequence of an attempt in high 
quarters to make him change his j)lans. He was interfered 
with on efvery side. More than once he came up from 
his camp to protest against the perpetual annoyance. 
Once he said to Mr. Lincoln, 'If the opinion of these 
civil and military gentlemen is of so much importance, 
why did you not follow their advice before you called 
me?' 

"That Grant has marked executive ability is proved by 
the fact that he is an able general. The elements that 
make a great general, make a great ruler. An army is a 
state, and a man who can rule that well, can rule a nation 
well. The history of military men in all ages proves this 
The great captains of the Old World have been the 
mightiest rulers. The most j)0|)ular Presidents, from 
Washington to Grant, have been military Presidents. A 
thousand men can lead a column, make a brilliant dash, 
fight a battle, and win a victory. Not ten men out of 
that thousand can plan a campaign, move half a million 
of men, cover an area of a thousand miles, and make no 
mistake in a single movement. We had brilliant men, 
patriotic men, earnest men, but all were failures till Grant 
appeared, for none of them could plan a campaign. As 
Grant conducted his army, so he did his administration. 
Whether people liked it or not, in the Cabinet as in the 
field, Grant carried out his own plans. He was the head 
of the nation, as Washington was. Everywhere he took 
the initiatory steps, and assumed the responsibility. 
When he presented a matter to the Cabinet, he did so 



AROUND THE WORLD. 29 

wittL his own views, saying, * Gentlemen, I propose to do 
so and so.' 

"On the Black Friday, when unscrupulous men came 
near ruining the whole country, General Grant walked 
quietly into the Treasury Building, and gave a simple 
order, and moved on the conspirators, as his custom is. 
His courage and patriotism were tried during the short 
period he held the portfolio of the War Department. 
While lieutenant-general, a United States Senator rode 
with General Grant to New York. The Senator found 
the General of the army as familiar with finance as if he 
had made it the study of his life. He sketched a plan by 
which the great debt of our country could be managed, 
gradually reduced, and the business of the country not be 
harmed. That plan, hastily developed on the iron path- 
way, has been persistently adhered to, as the General 
would adhere to the plan of his camj)aign. 

" The self-reliance and individuality of Grant are 
among his marked characteristics. He has a plan in all 
that he does, and adheres to it with sullen obstinacy. 
When his plans for the campaign were completed, he 
presented them to the President. They included Sher- 
man's famous march to the sea. Grant was to remain in 
the Wilderness, keeping Lee busy. ' Do you understand 
the plan, Mr. President ? ' said the commanding general. 
'Perfectly. You are to stay here and hold the legs of 
the Eebellion, while Sherman comes through to skin 'em.' 
When his vigorous campaign began to open in the West, 
Sherman offered his sword, and told Grant that he would 
not raise the question of rank. Grant's orders to St. 
Louis were not obeyed, and he went down to see what was 
the matter. Halleck reproved him. 'Remove me at 
once, if I don't obey orders,' was the response. 

" His perfect knowledge of men is another trait of 



30 GRANT'S TOUR 

Grant's character. He seldom makes a mistake. Meade 
was appointed at his personal solicitation, and the praise 
that he bestowed upon that general and other associates in 
armies, was unstinted and manly. While he was in the 
Wilderness, an official of the War Department came down 
and spent some time in the camp. Grant took his 
measure at once, for he seemed to understand war better 
than the General. AVhen this man applied for a?" 
important commission under the government. Grant 
refused the appointment, and has been heartily hated 
by that gentleman ever since. 

" He is a thoroughly domestic man. His quiet, unos- 
tentatious style of life is in harmony with the genius of 
the great country over which he rules. At Washington, 
all the time not required by public service is spent in the 
bosom of his family. After office hours, the President 
can be found in his elegant parlors, surrounded by his 
household. Mrs. Grant knows — what a great many 
wives do not know, but would be glad to know — ^where 
her husband spends his evenings. At Long Branch the 
Presidential cottage, unpretentious but attractive, is two 
miles away from the hotels. He is away from the noise, 
turmoil, and confusion of the public. Any one who 
wishes to make the President a social call, will find him 
at home any time after the drive is over. No letters of 
introduction are needed, for the President is accessible to 
every one. All who call will find him a quiet, genial, 
intelligent, unostentatious gentleman; a man of very 
decided opinions on matters and things in general, and 
quite able to express them when he desires so to do. His 
personal recreations and pleasures are of his own type, 
and he knows how to enjoy them. He worships in the 
Methodist Church, and though not a communicant, he is 
an official member of the Church. He usually drives a 



AROUND THE WORLD, 



31 



pair of spanking bays in a high English carriage, known 
as a dog-cart. He takes his seat in church without 
parade, listens with sharp attention, keeiDing his keen eyes 
on the preacher, seldom changing his position through the 
service." 

Although these words were written before the close of 
his second term, yet they are true to-day. Such is " the 
man whom the people delight to honor." 

Soon after the close of his second term. General Grant 
set sail upon a " tour around the world." Of the sights 
he saw, the ovations he received from the hands of the 
rulers of the Old World, and the honors which were 
bestowed upon him when he returned again to the land of 
his birth, future chapters will narrate. 




CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL GEANT LEAVES PHILADELPHIA ENTHUSIASTIC 

OVATIONS ACROSS THE OCEAN INTERESTING INCI- 
DENTS WELCOME TO ENGLAND AT LIVERPOOL 

SIGHTS AND SCENES IN THE GREAT CITY A TRIBUTE 

FROM THE PRESS AN INCIDENT. 

On the 17tli of May, 1877, ex-President Grant, with 
his wife and son Jesse, sailed for Europe, from Phila- 
delphia, in the American line steamship Indiana. His 
departure was made the occasion of a great parting 
demonstration, in which all classes of the community 
seemed to have taken a hearty and enthusiastic share. 




AMERICAN LINE STEAMER INDIANA. 



The steamer Twilight carried the ex-President, the late 
members of his Cabinet, with other distinguished persons, 
and the invited guests from this city, to the number 
altogether of about five hundred persons. The United 
States revenue cutter Hamilton bore Mrs. Grant, under 
the care of Mr, Childs, and a few other leading citizens of 



32 



AROUND THE WORLD, 33 

Philadelphia. Both steamers accompanied the Indiana 
down the bay as far as Newcastle, Del., some thirty miles 
from the city, where, with many " God speeds," and much 
cheering and blowing of steam- whistles^ the honored 
guest and his family were, at half-past three, bid farewell 
and transferred to the steamer which was to carry them 
across the ocean. Before this occurred, however, a very 
interesting ceremony took place on board the Twilight. 

In the ladies' cabin a private table was spread for the 
distinguished guests, and among those who sat down to 
the festive board were the following: General U. S. 
Grant, at the head of the table ; General W. T. Sherman 
on his right, and Mayor William S. Stokely, of Phila- 
delphia, on his left ; ex-Secretary of State Hon. Hamilton 
Fish, Lieutenant-Colonel Fred. Grant, ex-Secretary of the 
Interior Hon. Zach. Chandler, Governor John F. Hart- 
ranft, of Pennsylvania; ex-Senator Simon Cameron, 
Senator J. Don. Cameron, Adjutant-General James W. 
Latta, ex-Secretaries of the Navy George H. Bobeson and 
A. E. Borie, Senator William A. Wallace, of Pennsyl- 
vania; Colonel Charles Thompson Jones, Chairman of 
the Committee of Councils ; General Louis Wagner, 
General George H. Sharpe, of New York ; General 
Horace Porter, J. W, Sengman, of New York ; Charles 
O'Neill, M. C, and several others. After the luncheon 
was concluded, Mayor Stokley arose and toasted, " The 
honored guest of to-day," saying, that in a very short 
time he would leave them for a long journey, and calling 
upon General Grant for a reply. 

General Grant was received with tremendous applause 
as he rose to respond. He said: "Mr. Mayor and 
Gentlemen, I had not expected to make a speech 
to-day, and, therefore, can do nothing more than thank 
you, as I have had occasion to do so often within the past 



34 GRANT'S TOUR 

week. I have been only eight clays in Philadelphia, and 
have been received with such unexpected kindness that it 
finds me with no words to thank you. What with driving 
in the Park, and dinners afterward, and keeping it up 
until after midnight, and now to find myself still receiving 
your kind hospitality, I am afraid you have not left me 
stomach enough to cross the Atlantic." He sat down 
amid a perfect storm of laughter and applause. 

Speeches were made by General Sherman, Hon. 
Hamilton Fish, Hon. Zach. Chandler, Hon. George M. 
Kobeson, Hon. Simon Cameron, General I. H. Bailey, 
and Governor Hartranft. The concluding words of fare- 
well were offered by Ma3^or Stokley, of Philadelphia. 

General Grant then, in a quiet, earnest manner, plainly 
showing that he was not unmoved by the homage he had 
received, spoke as follows: "My dear friends, I was not 
aware that we would have so much speech-making here, 
or that it would be necessary for me to say any more to 
you ; but I feel that the compliments you have showered 
upon me were not altogether deserved. They should not 
be paid to me, either as a soldier or as a civil officer. As 
a general, your praises do not all belong to me; 'as the 
executive of the nation, they were not due to me. There 
is no man that can fill both or either of these positions 
without the help of good men. I selected my lieutenants 
when I was in both positions, and they were men, I 
believe, who could have filled my place often better than 
I did. I never flattered myself that I was entitled to the 
place you gave me. My lieutenants could have acted, 
perhaps, better than J, had the opportunity presented 
itself. Sherman could have taken my place as a soldier, 
or in a civil office ; and so could Sheridan, and others that 
I might name. I am sure that if the country ever comes 
to this need again, there will be men for the work ; there 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



35 



will be men born for every emergency. Again I thank 
you, and again I bid you good-by ; and once again I say, 
that if I had fallen, Sherman or Sheridan, or some of my 
other lieutenants, would have succeeded." 




STEAMER TWILIGHT, 



These words were received with continued rounds of 
applause. Shortly after this the General was transferred 
to the Indiana ; last good-byes were said, and the steamer 
proceeded on her way to England. 

The following dispatches were .exchanged between 
President Hayes and General Grant: 

New York, May 17, 1S77. 

General U. S. Grant, Philadelphia : 

Mrs. Hayes joins me in heartiest wishes that yon and Mrs. 
Grant may have a prosperous voyage, and, after a happy visit 
abroad, a safe return to your friends and country. 

R. B. Hayes. 



36 



GRANT'S TOUR 



Steamer Twilight. Delaware River, \ 

M. I 



May 17, 11 A. M. 

President Hayes, Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. : 

Mrs. Grant joins me in thanks to you and Mrs. Hayes for 
your kind wishes in your message received on board this boat 
after pushing out from the wharf. We unite in returning our 
cordial greetings, and in expressing our best wishes for your 
health, happiness and success in your most responsible position. 
Hoping to return to my country to find it prosperous in busi- 
ness and with cordial feelings renewed between all sections, 
I am very truly yours, U. S. Grant. 




THE INDIANA GOING TO SEA, AS VIEWED FEOM CAPE MAY, 

Throughout the voyage General Grant was in unusu- 
ally good spirits, and remarked that it was the first time 
in fifteen years that ten days had passed and he had not 
had a telegraph wire at his back, and he declared that the 
sensa^tion was as agreeable as it had been unusual. Mrs. 
Grant greatly enjoyed the voyage. She remarked that 
the enthusiasm which had been manifested by the citizens 



AROUND THE WORLD, 37 

of Philadelphia was one of the most gratifying incidents 
of her life. 

Grant's fellow passengers unite in saying that through- 
out the journey the General's manners were cordial and 
familiar. He was indeed a universal favorite. He arose 
at an early hour, and in company with his wife, enjoyed 
the morning breeze. After breakfast he joined the 
smoking-room club, and engaged in agreeable and enter- 
taining conversation, in which he displayed a geniality 
and frankness the reverse of his reputed reserve. He 
entered heartily into all the amusements and incidents of 
ship-life, studying carefully the manners, details, and 
management of the steamshij^. 

During the voyage an amusing incident occurred. 
One of the passengers had formerly served as a soldier 
under Buckner, at Fort Donaldson. There were repeated 
scenes of infinite banter between the veteran and General 
Grant, the latter nicknaming him "Johnny." When 
they reached Liverpool, the old soldier proclaimed him- 
. self a Grant man for the rest of his life. 

There were very few incidents of interest connected 
with the voyage. When about half way over, a child 
belonging to one of the steerage passengers died, and 
was buried at sea. General Grant attended the ceremony, 
and was deeply impressed with the solemn scene. 

Although very free in his conversation, there were 
certain subjects which he persistently avoided. One of 
these was American politics. AVhenever this was intro- 
duced in the smoking-room, he would leave abruptly, 
giving as an excuse for so doing, that any opinion he 
might give would very likely be misconstrued. President 
Hayes, he said, deserved the esteem and confidence of all 
true lovers of the country while trying his experiment 
with the South. 



38 GRANT'S TOUR 

His conversation ran largely upon his recollections of 
army life — not in a boasting, ostentatious way, but in a 
chatty, agreeable manner, which won the hearts of all his 
auditors, and convinced them that he was "every whit a 
gentleman." When one of the passengers referred to the 
failure of Carl Schurz and General Banks in the army, 
he said, smiling : 

"Don't forget that they commenced as Major- 
Generals." 

He spoke in high terms of the Confederate General Joe 
Johnston, whom he pronounced a very able commander. 
He knew Stonewall Jackson when a student at West Point. 
That subsequently famous ofl&cer was at that time a fanatic 
in religion, with decidedly hypochondriac tendencies. 
When a passenger asked what would have become of 
Jackson's fame had he encountered Sheridan, General 
Grant remarked that Sheridan had not only defeated 
Jackson, but destroyed him. 

He spoke of Generals MacPherson, Sherman, and 
Sheridan. The first general was notable for a rare, 
manliness of character, and his death was a national 
misfortune. He alluded to Sherman's wonderful genius, 
and said that the speech which Sherman delivered at 
Philadelphia when the Indiana left, was one of the finest 
he had ever heard. Sheridan he always mentioned with 
enthusiasm, and said that "little Phil." owed his elevation 
solely to his own abilities. Sheridan's appointment to the 
column of the cavalry after Pleasanton, was agreed upon 
by Halleck and himself; Halleck having discovered 
Sheridan's merit when serving as a quartermaster. 
Sheridan's battle of Five Forks was one of the finest 
events of the war, and resulted in a brilliant victory, 
when a less capable and energetic commander would have 
fancied himself defeated. The credit for this signal 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



39 



victory was in a peculiar sense due entirely to General 
Sheridan. 

As they drew near Queenstown, a heavy north-north- 
west gale, which had been predicted, met the steamer, 




ARRIVAL OF THE INDIANA AT QUEENSTOWN. 

which caused the sea to run very high. A deputation 
from Cork came alongside the Indiana in a steam-tug. 
Grant at that moment was leaning over the tafFrail, 
quietly smoking his cigar ; upon his head he wore a plain 
black silk hat. When the deputation saw him, they gave 
him three rousing Irish cheers. They offered him the 
hospitalities of Queenstown, remarking that every village 
and hamlet in Ireland had resounded with the praises of 
his name, and would welcome him with all the warmth 
and candor characteristic of the Irish people. 

A little ex tempore reception was held in the captain's 
cabin, when the ex-President replied to the citizens of 
Queenstown, regretting that he could not then avail him- 
self of their hospitality, but promising to return to 



40 GRANT'S TOUR 

Ireland within a short time. His letters and cable 
dispatches were then delivered to him, the deputation 
withdrew, and the Indiana proceeded to Liverpool ; hearty 
cheers being exchanged between the two vessels as long as 
they were within hearing distance. 

There was a fair yachting breeze all the way up the 
Channel, the sun emerging occasionally and permitting a 
clear view of the Welsh coast. The Indiana reached 
LiverjDOol at half-past two, p. m., gaily dressed all over 
with flags. In honor of the arrival of the distinguished 
American, all the shipping in the Liverpool docks also 
exhibited a profuse display of bunting, the flags of all 
nations waving along the seven miles of water-front, 
presenting a magnificent coup d'oeil. 

General Badeau, the United States Consul-General at 
London ; the Vice-Consul at Liverpool, representing Mr. 
Fairchild, and a number of prominent London and 
Liverpool merchants, doing business with the United 
States, went out in three tenders and met the steamer a 
short distance down the Mersey. As the Indiana neared 
the docks. General Grant was seen standing on the bridge 
with the captain, acknowledging the cheers of the immense 
crowds which lined the water-front and every pier and 
vessel along the river. 

General Grant and friends left the steamer in the tug, 
on which were the consuls and a few intimate friends. 
The Mayor of Liverpool, members of Common Council, a 
deputation of merchants, surrounded by an immense 
throng of people of both sexes, anxious to see the "great 
Yankee general," awaited the arrival of the tenders at 
the landing stage. As General Badeau's boat ran along- 
side the Custom House wharf, a tremendous, deafening 
cheer went up. The weather was truly delightful. A 
bright sunshine brightened the appearance of the thous- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



41 



ands of many-colored flags, and the smooth, water in the 
river reflected the beaming rays. 

General Grant landed with Madame Badeau leanino- 
on his arm, Mrs. Grant following with General Badeau 
and her son, forming a most interesting group. As the 
jDarty stepped on to the wharf, a cordon of police formed 
around them and the Mayor and Councilmen, as the 
thousands of people had begun to crush and crowd in 




SCENE ON THE MERSEY NEAR LIVERPOOL. 

their eagerness to get a sight of the visitors. Now the 
cheering from the crowd on shore was taken uj) by the 
passengers of the Indiana, who thus bade adieu to their 
famous fellow passenger. 

A thousand hats were raised as the Mayor slowly 
advanced to meet the ex-President, reading as he moved 
forv/ard, according to the old English custom when greet- 



42 GRANT'S TOUR 

ing noted guests, an address of formal welcome, repeating 
the deep interest the citizens of Liverpool felt in having 
him among them, as an illustrious statesman and soldier, 
and asking him to accept the hospitalities which were 
extended in the name of the great commercial city he 
represented. 

General Grant waited a few seconds until the cheering 
had ceased, then quietly replied to the civic address, 
saying he experienced extreme pleasure in accej^ting the 
kind invitation extended, laying particular stress on this, 
that he felt they hSd expressed the cordial feeling of 
England toward him as a citizen of the United States. 
Grant wore civilian's attii'e, somewhat to the disappoint- 
ment of the crowd, who expected to see him decked in all 
the glory of the uniform of the army. After being 
introduced to the members of the Council and others, the 
Mayor, ex-President and Mrs, Grant entered the Mayor's 
state coach, driven and attended by the corporation' 
flunkeys in frills, knee-breeches, powdered wigs and^ 
three-cornered hats, and started for the Aldelphi Hotel. 

They were followed by a long line of private carriages 
and a vast concourse of people through Water and Lime 
streets. Near St. George's Hall they were met by new 
crowds which had gathered, and which cheered them 
most lustily as the Mayor's coach turned up to the main 
entrance of the Adelphi. Large bodies of police were 
required to keep back the crowd, which pressed eagerly 
forward, all anxious to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals. 
The guests entered the hotel, and were allowed to pass at 
once to their rooms. 

Having completed their toilet, General and Mrs. 
Grant again entered the carriage for a drive through the 
city. Hurried visits were made to the Prince's Park, 
Toxteth, the Post Office, and the shijDjDing at Wapping. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 43 

When they returned to the Aclelj)hi, they were met by a 
large number of ladies and gentlemen, with whom they 
passed a pleasant half hour. After they had partaken of 
the bountiful breakfast prepared for them, they visited the 
Mayor at his residence, where they were entertained in a 
most agreeable manner. Having taken leave of the 
Mayor, they drove down to the "Water street wharf, and 
were received by the members of the Dock Board. 

Embarking on the steamboat in the service of the 
Board, they made a cruise along the docks, the principal 
features being pointed out to the General by the con- 
structing engineer. He evinced great interest in the 
magnificent dock system of Liverj^ool, and expressed his 
surprise at the fifteen miles of masts, visible at every 
point as far as the eye could reach. It was contrasted 
with the system of piers in New York, and admitted that 
our shaky and unsatisfactory landing places on the North 
and East rivers had cost more than the su23erb and sub- 
stantial structures which the visitors were inspecting on 
the Mersey. He was astonished at the smallness of the 
amount annually required to keep the docks in order, and 
referred to the enormous sums which had been spent in 
wooden shams in New York, and which required renew- 
ing every few years at great outlay. The Huskisson, 
Canada, Queen's, Random, Prince's, Brunswick and other 
docks, covering the proverbial 2,000 acres, were duly 
passed in review, and then they went out to greet the City 
of Brussels. 

At about half j^ast one o'clock they returned again to 
the city, and were at once driven to the Town Hall, 
where they partook of a lunch with the Mayoi' and other 
civic dignitaries. This building is one of the. most inter- 
esting in the city, and from the summit of the great dome 
the figure of Britannia looking abroad reminds one of the 



44 GRANT'S TOUR 

now celebrated Hermann monument in Germany. Gen- 
eral Grant was escorted to the reception saloon, where he 
examined the portraits of the former Mayors and wealthy 
merchants who have long since passed away ; the famous 
Chantry statues of Canning and Koscoe, and the elegant 
tapestry with which the various saloons were fitted up. 

Lunch was prej^ared in what might be termed the 
Crimson Saloon. Covers were laid for fifty, the table 
being beautifully decorated with choice flowers and orna- 
ments in confection, suggestive of very elaborate prepara- 
tion. Among those present were the Mayor, the Mayoress, 
members of the City Council, one member of Parliament, 
the City Solicitor, and several prominent merchants. 
Mrs. Grant sat on the left of the Mayor, and our ex- 
President on his right. The repast was served immedi- 
ately the guests assembled, and was a most enjoyable 
affair. At the conclusion of lunch the Mayor arose and 
proposed the health of the Queen, in accordance with the 
tradition which places English majesty first on all state 
and festive occasions. This was di'unk standing. The 
host next proposed the health of " General and ex-Presi- 
dent Grant, the distinguished soldier and statesman 
present," remarking that it would be unnecessary for him 
to repeat the earnestness of their welcome, their desire to 
draw closer the bonds of friendship between the two 
greatest commercial nations in the world, and especially 
to honor the hero of a hundred battles whose courage 
and skill challenged their admiration. 

Grant responded with unusual gaiety of manner, 
acknowledging the pleasure with which he received their 
constant manifestations of good will, believing that ulti- 
mately the bonds of union must be strengthened between 
the two countries. He excused himself from making an 
extended rej)ly, but p|Dposed in return the "health of ihe 



AROUND THE WORLD, 45 

Mayoress and the ladies of Liverpool." To this an ex- 
Mayor responded, thanking Grant for his gallantry, and 
proposing, also, the health of Mrs. Grant. During the 
luncheon the streets leading to the Town Hall were 
packed with spectators, and the flags and decorations 
gave the streets quite a holiday appearance. 

At four o'clock the party, including the Mayoress and 
the other guests, visited the Exchange. As they entered 
the News Koom there was a general rush of cotton mer- 
chants, brokers and others, and the reception to Grant 
was truly enthusiastic. Ascending the gallery facing the 
Nelson Monument, he addressed a few words to the com- 
pany, saying that he was much gratified at the recej)tion 
accorded him in Liverpool, and that he would soon revisit 
their city, hoping better to understand its institutions and 
business interests. The cheering continued for a minute 
after he had concluded, and was taken up by the j^eople 
collected in the alleys running into Water and Old Hall 
streets. 

The reception of General Grant in England was not 
unlike the ovations which monarchs receive from other 
nations. Everything and everybody seemed to be in the 
best possible spirits. There was nothing to mar the 
grandeur of the scene. General Grant was the hero of 
the hour, and every one seemed determined to make the 
visit one of international importance. The press were 
unanimous in sounding his praise. His career as a 
soldier and statesman was reviewed, and the record pro- 
nounced perfect. One of them declared that he was 
"worthy of every possible attention. His name is sro 
closely interwoven with recent events in the history of 
the United States, that not only in America, but through- 
out Europe, he is entitled to respectful treatment in a 
degree which it is the Lot of but very few to command. 



46 



GRANTS TOUR 



It urges, tlierefore, free and generous receptions every- 
where." 

Wlien tlie Aldermen at Queenstown wished to present 
him with an address, some opposed the idea for the reason 
that Grant had declined to receive the address of the 
Irish nation. This act upon the part of General Grant 
provoked the ire of some of the members of the Catholic 
Church at that point ; and on the Sunday following his 
arrival, a parish priest preached a sermon against him 
because he had shown himself the persistent enemy of the 
Catholic Church. This solitary instance of bigotry which 
has been unduly magnified, would not in the least have 
interfered with the popular demonstration had he landed, 
and a corporation address would have been presented. 







CHAPTER III. 

DEPAETTJEE FOE MANCHESTEE GEAND EECEPTION 

AEEIYE IN LONDON EPSOM EACES THE BANQUET 

THE SEEVICE IN WESTMINSTEE ABBEY PIEEEE- 

PONT GIVES A EECEPTION KATE FIELD TELIS WHO 

WAS THEEE OLIVE LOGAN's DESCEIPTION — A MAG- 
NIFICENT AFFAIE A LETTEE FEOM THE GENEEAL 

HIS IMPEESSION OF ENGLAND. 

On the 30th of May, General Grant, accompanied by 
his wife, Mrs. Fairchild, General Badeau, Mr. Galloway, 
the American Consular Commissioner, and Mr. Crane, 
United States Consul at Manchester, left Liverpool en 
route for Manchester. As they passed along, immense 
crowds gathered at every station and loudly cheered them. 
All the stations were beautifully decorated, the American 
flag being everywhere prominent. 

At eleven o'clock they reached Manchester. They 
were received by the Mayor and Aldermen, and a very 
large assemblage of citizens, who manifested their entha- 
siasm by continued cheering. Accompanied by these 
dignitaries, General Grant visited the factories which 
have made Manchester famous, the new Town Assizes 
Court, and the Royal Exchange. 

At the new Town Hall the distinguished visitor was 
received by the Dean of Manchester, Mr. Birley, M. P. ; 
Jacob Bright, and the Mayors of Talford and Wigan. 
The address of the Mayor and Corporation was presented 
in the drawing-room. 

In his speech the Mayor said that he had not forgotten 
a similar occasion when, in 1863, the ship Griswold 

4-7 



48 



GRANTS TOUR 



brought a cargo of provisions to the suffering operatives 
of that city, who, on account of the failure of the cotton 
crop at the South, had been thrown out of employment. 
He also made a very pleasant allusion to the visit of that 
distinguished American statesman and diplomat, Reverdy 
Johnson. The present object of the corporation he 
declared to be to evince the good will of the citizens of 
Manchester to General Grant personally, and as a repre- 
sentative of the great American j^eople, whose kindly 
feeling they desired to cultivate. 




MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. 

A congratulatory address was delivered by Sir Joseph 
Heron, in the course of which he referred to the kind 
expressions which the recent birthday of the Queen had 
evoked in America. He expressed the wish that the 
present existing good feeling would constantly increase, 
and hoped that the visit of the ex-President would ulti- 
mately lead to an interchange of ideas on the subject of 
abolishing the restrictions of trade and the establishment, 
by the common consent of both nations, of free commer- 
cial intercourse between England and the United States. 

During the delivery of the addresses. General Grant 
listened with attention, marked by that quiet composure 
of manner peculiar to him, unmoved, although thousands 



AROUND THE WORLD. 49 

of eyes were directed towards him. In a calm, quiet 
manner he arose and acknowledged the welcome he had 
received. 

"It is scarcely possible for me," he said, "to give 
utterance to the feelings evoked by my reception upon 
your soil from the moment of my arrival in Liverpool, 
where I have passed a couple of days, until the present 
moment. After the scene which I have witnessed in your 
streets, the elements of greatness, as manifested in your 
public and industrial buildings, I may be allowed to say 
that no person could be the recipient of the honor and 
attention you have bestowed upon me, without the pro- 
foundest feelings. Such have been incited in me, and I 
find myself inadequate to their proper expression. It 
was my original purpose, on my arrival in Liverpool, to 
hasten to London, and from thence proceed to visit the 
various points of interest in the country. Among these I 
have regarded Manchester as most important, as I have 
been aware for years of the great amount of your manu- 
factures, many of which find their ultimate destination in 
my own country. So I am aware that the sentiments of 
the great mass of the people of Manchester went out in 
sympathy to that country during the mighty struggle in 
which it fell to my lot to take some humble part. The 
expressions of the people of Manchester at the time of 
our great trial incited within the breasts of my country- 
men a feeling of friendship toward them distinct from 
that felt toward ' all England, and in that spirit I accept, 
on the part of my country, the compliments paid me as 
its re23resentative, and thank you." 

At the conclusion of the address of General Grant, 
lunch was served in the large banquet hall. Toasts to 
the Queen and the Prince of Wales were proposed and 
drunk with all the honors. The Mayor of Manchester 



50 



GRANTS TOUR 



responded to each in loyal speeclies. The health of 
President Hayes was then proposed, and was received 
with enthusiasm. Mr. Newton Crane, United States 
Consul at Manchester, responded amid considerable 
applause. After these formalities, the Mayor of Man- 
chester proposed the health of General Grant amid the 
plaudits of the assemblage. 




s'C/^rr/z/9cr, 



SCENE ON THE ENGLISH COAST. 



General Grant replied, with a humorous twinkle in 
his eye, that Englishmen had got more speeches, and of 
greater length, out of him, than his own countrymen, 
but they were poorer because they were longer than he 
was accustomed to make. He warmly returned thanks 
for the reception he had received at the hands of the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 51 

people of Manchester, and concluded his remarks by 
proposing the health of the Mayoress and the ladies. 
The Mayor replied in suitable terms. 

Mr. Jacob Bright, M. P., being introduced, said: 
" No guest so distinguished has ever before visited Man- 
chester. General Grant is a brave soldier, and he has 
pursued a generous, pacific policy toward the enemies he 
had conquered. He should be honored and be loved, and 
deserved the hearty reception he would certainly receive 
throughout the realm." 

Mr. Bright also touched upon free trade, and said he 
hoped and believed that the time would come when a free 
interchange of products would take place between the two 
great nations of common kindred. 

The banquet over. General Grant was introduced to 
the assemblage, and a general hand-shaking followed. 

In the evening he attended the Theatre Boyal, and 
visited for a short time the Prince's Theatre, where J. L. 
Toole was performing. 

On the following morning he arose at an early hour, 
and, accompanied by several members of the Manchester 
Common Council, visited the various canal depots in the 
city. He subsequently took a drive to the Crescent, and 
through Salford to the chief cotton manufacturing district. 
AVherever he was recognized by the townspeoj^le, and 
especially by the operatives, some of whom had been in 
the United States, he was enthusiastically cheered. At 
ten he made various calls, returning the visit of the 
Mayor, and taking his formal leave of that functionary. 

At the London Boad Station an immense crowd had 
gathered to see the hero depart for London. He was 
accompanied to the platform by Mr. Crane, our Consul at 
Manchester ; Mr. Galloway, Consular Commissioner ; 
Mrs. Fairchild, the Mayor and Mayoress, and General 



52 GRANT'S TOUR 

and Mrs. Badeau, with the agent of the Pullman Com- 
pany and the Superintendent of the Midland Railway. 
The factory girls were out almost en masse in their 
working attire, and joined in the huzzas as he entered the 
station. The ex-President bowed two or three times in 
acknowledgment of the cheers and exclamations, then 
walked directly to the drawing-room car which had been 
set apart for him. Mrs. Grant looked somewhat fatigued, 
but her husband never looked better. Several Americans 
had arrived from London to make the journey to the 
metropolis with him, and he at once entered into an 
animated conversation with them. As the train moved 
out, the cheers were renewed, but as it was a special fast 
train, there was but little time to acknowledge them, and 
the distinguished party were soon whirling through the 
sombre-looking districts of Lancaster,- whose elegant 
buildings formed a striking contrast to the black hills and 
valleys of the coal district. Passing Stockj^ort there were 
a few flags, and some citizens stood gaping and yelling 
ap23arently as we went by, but it was imj)ossible to dis- 
tinguish a word. Crossing the line between Lancashire 
and Derby, the scenery suddenly changed, and the 
General remarked that almost every foot of land was 
utilized or under cultivation. Huge factory shafts stood 
up in relief against the clear sky in the direction of Not- 
tingham, reminding one of the great iron works of Beth- 
lehem and other places in Pennsylvania. 

The first sto|3ping-place was at Leicester, the chief 
town of Leicestershire. As the train glided quickly into 
the station, there was a rush to see Grant, but as the 
Mayor and his advisers were present, the police formed a 
circle, so that only the favored few could approach the 
visitors. The station was beautifully decorated with 
bunting, the English and American flags hanging in 



ARO UND THE WO R L D. 53 

festoons over the principal doorway of the station, 
opposite to which the drawing-room car was stopped. 
Rich bouquets of fragrant flowers were sent in by a 
number of ladies to "Mr. and Mrs. Grant." There were 
more ladies on the platform, indeed, than gentlemen. 
The Town Councilmen greeted the travelers by removing 
their hats, and the Mayor proceeded to read an address to 
Grant, offering him the hospitalities of the town, and 
referring generally to his career and achievements, as had 
been done at LiverjDOol and Manchester. Grant replied 
in a few well chosen sentences, referring to the kindness 
and generosity evinced in the address, remarking on the 
antiquity of their town, its foundation by King Lear, and 
the honor it had of retaining the dust of Richard III., 
the hero of Bosworth Field. The Mayor expressed the 
hope that he would return at some future day to visit 
the ancient landmarks he had referred to, and accept the 
hospitality of the Mayoralty. After partaking of a 
dejeuner and a general introduction to the comj)any, the 
party re-entered the car and left for Bedford. 

At Bedford the fact of his arrival and reception at 
Leicester had been already posted up by the telegraph- 
operators outside the office at the depot, and when the 
Mayor of Bedford greeted the ex-President, he told him 
how glad he was to hear of his stopping at Leicester, and 
then he, too, made an address, terming Grant the Han- 
nibal of the American armies, and praying that he might 
be spared to enjoy the honors and rewards which would 
continue to be heaped upon him. In reply Grant 
thanked him and the good people of Bedford, begging to 
be excused from making a speech, as he had discovered 
how impotent he was in that respect amid the eloquence 
of English officials. He raised some merriment by refer- 
ring to the principle of supplying a substitute. Flowers 



54 GRANT'S TOUR 

and flags were in rich, abundance here also, some of the 
mottoes referring to different episodes of our late war. 

At the terminus of the Midland Railway the travelers . 
were given another enthusiastic welcome. They were met 
at this point by Minister Pierrepont, in behalf of the 
United States, and Lord Vernon. The entrance of the 
station was thronged with huge crowds which cheered 
loudly. There was no time for speech-making. General 
and Mrs. Grant and General Badeau entered the carriage 
of Mr. Pierrepont, and were driven rapidly down Totten- 
ham Court road into 0-xford street, thence westward to 
the residence of the American Minister. 

Thus they were in the great English capital, prepared 
to see and be seen. They appeared in public but very 
little during the remainder of the day ; and the public, 
believing that it was only proper that they should be 
given ample time to recover from the fatigues of their 
journey, refrained from calling upon them. On the 2d 
of June General Grant paid a visit to the Prince of 
Wales, and was invited to go to Epsom by the heir- 
apparent. At a few minutes before one o'clock the royal 
equipage containing the Prince of Wales drove up to the 
Victoria station at Pimlico, followed by the carriages of 
the American Minister and others, containing General 
Grant, Lord Dudley, Lord Echo, the Duke of Hamilton, 
the German Ambassador, Count Munster, the Duke of 
Cambridge and a number of peers. The distinguished 
company passed into the station amid the most enthusi- 
astic cheering. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of 
' Cambridge entered the same compartment with General 
Grant, and all three were in earnest conversation when 
the train moved off at one o'clock. Arrived at Epsom 
Downs, General Grant was greeted with a series of ova- 
tions which declared his popularity. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 5o 

In the evening lie was entertained by a grand banquet 
at Apsley House, given in bis honor by the Duke of 
Wellington. It was a splendid and hearty reception. 
The guests were Mrs, and General Grant, Count and 
Countess Gleichen, Lord and Lady Abercrombie, Lord 
and Lady Churchill, Marquises Tweeddale, Sligo, and 
Aylesbury, Earl Roden, Viscount Torrington, Lords 
George Paget, Calthorpe, Houghton, Strathnairn, the 
Marchioness of Hertford, Countess of Hardwicke, Count- 
ess of Bradford, Lady Wellesley, Lady Emily Peel and 
Lady Skelmersdale, Miss Wellesley, and a number of 
others well known to the London world of high social 
life. The banquet was served up in the famous Waterloo 
Chamber, where the old Iron Duke loved to meet the war 
generals of 1815 on the 18th of June every year, and 
celebrate the anniversary of the great battle which forever 
closed the fortunes of Napoleon Bonaparte. Here, over- 
looking Hyde Park, and within view of his own statue at 
the entrance to the park at Hyde Park corner, the old 
Duke presided over the annual banquet, reviewing the 
events of the momentous times when the supremacy of 
Great Britain was hanging in the balance, with strong 
probabilities of the scale turning against her. The 
Waterloo Chamber has been closed a good deal since the 
death of Arthur Wellesley, for the present Duke and 
Duchess have spent most of their time, when in England, 
at the lovely estate in Winchelsea, which was presented 
to the eminent soldier by the Crown after the close of the 
great European wars. 

This Waterloo Chamber still contains some of the fine 
old paintings which were hung upon the walls by the first 
Duke. For instance, there is the celebrated painting, 
"Signing the Treaty of Westphalia," where the com- 
mander-in-chief is the* central figure of a galaxy of 



56 GRANT'S TOUR 

generals, such as lias seldom been gathered together since. 
A magnificent life-size portrait of Napoleon, Landseer's 
"Van Amburgh and the Lions," Correggio's "Christ on 
the Mount of Olives," on a panel, and full-length por- 
traits of foreign sovereigns and notabilities, by Velasquez, 
Wilkie and Teniers, are in the saloons adjoining. The 
Duke was looking out of the main window, overlooking 
the Park, at the time the house was mobbed by the 
reformers whom he opposed. It was a dramatic incident 
that the conqueror of Lee should meet in this revered 
chamber the descendant of the conqueror of Napoleon 
the Great. General Grant was given precedence in the 
honors of the evening, escorting the Duchess of Welling- 
ton to supper and afterward escorting her to the reception, 
at which were present the Duke and Duchess of Cleve- 
land, the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the Duke 
and Duchess of Manchester, and many of those already 
mentioned above. 

Although a brilliant affair, there were no speeches of 
note at the supper. The grand gaseliers lit up the magr 
nificent hall and the lovely damasks and laces, and 
revealed the wealth of gold and silver, and the flowers 
and confections of the table. 

During the general conversation which followed the 
supper. General Grant was asked what was the comparison 
between English racing, as he had seen it on the day of 
the Oaks at Epsom, and the races in America. He said, 
with a smile, "There is an impression abroad that I am a 
great horse-racer, fond of horses, and know all about 
races; but, on the contrary, I really know nothing of 
racing, having seen only two races — one at Cincinnati, in 
1865, and the opening of Jerome Park, in 1867. I feel, 
therefore, that I am not qualified to judge of the 
comparison." 



AROUND THE WORLD. 57 

On the following day, which was the Sabbath, General 
Grant attended divine service in Westminster Abbey. 
Dean Stanley preached an eloquent sermon from Genesis 
xxvii. 38 : "And Esau said unto his father, hast thou but 
one blessing, my father ? Bless me, even me, also, O my 
father ! And Esau lifted up his voice and wept." In the 
course of his sermon he alluded to ex-President Grant, 
saying, "that in the midst of the congregation there was 
one of the chiefest citizens of the United States, who had 
just laid down the sceptre of the American Commonwealth, 
who by his military prowess and generous treatment of 
his comrades and adversaries had restored unity to his 
country. We welcome him as a sign and pledge that the 
two great kindred nations are one in heart and are equally 
at home under this paternal roof. Both regard with rev- 
ential affection this ancient cradle of their common life." 

On the evening of the 5th of June a grand reception 
was given by Hon. Edward Pierrepont, United States 
Minister, at the Court of St. James. The American Em- 
bassy is a fine old English mansion of capacious interior 
and sombre appearance, situated in Cavendish square, the 
heart of Tanboury St. Germain of London. It is situated 
near the gloomy, castellated residence of the Duke 
of Portland, from which Thackeray draws his descriptions 
of the home of the Marquis of Steyne. Cavendish square 
is the centre of the lords of Bentinck and the great 
earls of the Harcourt family, and was the resting place of 
the aristocracy when driven from their palatial houses in 
Soho square by the mob in 1740. Near by is what Ten- 
nyson calls "the long, unlovely street," where young A. 
H. Hallam lived, for whom he wrote his "InMemoriam." 
It is now given over to dukes, ministers, noblemen, and 
high class physicians. The house was superbly decorated 
with flowers, and illuminated with glaring lights, beneath 



58 GRANT'S TOUR 

whicli glittered and flashed the jewelled stars and orders, 
war decorations and ribbons making a dazzling coup 
d'mil as the variegated throng moved through the spacious 
salons and corridors. The large drawing and reception 
rooms were crowded from ten to one o'clock. At least 
one thousand j)ersons were j)resent, comprising all the 
best and most distinguished of English and American So- 
ciety in London. Among those present Miss Kate Field, 
in her chatty way, mentions the following : — 

" Among the earliest arrivals were Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, 
who remained in the anteroom with General Grant until the 
arrival of Lord Derby, when the ex-Premier moved loftily 
away. Gladstone looks like Daniel Webster a little, while Earl 
Derby reminds one of a highly successful city banker. Derby's 
face beamed radiantly, as though Russia were a myth, and the 
Sublime Porte something good to drink 

" Then came John Bright, M. P., silver-haired and silver- 
voiced, the first Quaker who held a place in the British Cabinet, 
and the staunch friend of America. ELis meeting with Grant 
was very cordial. 

''lie was followed by the Earl of Shaftesbur_y, Lord Hough- 
ton, the poet, whose pleasant smile and genial manner were not 
unknown to the ex-President, and the Marquis of Ripon, a 
clever statesman who served many years in the Cabinet, and 
whom every lady calls a thoroughly good fellow. 

"Among the succeeding myriads I noticed the youthful face 
of the Marquis of Lome, the husband of Princess Louise and 
heir to the dukedom of Argyll. He was accompanied by his 
sisters. The paternal face of the Earl of Caithness, which is no 
stranger to America, next appeared from the throng of honor- 
ables. On his arm was the Countess, whose bosom was literally 
ablaze with diamonds. 

" Tn quick succession came Lord Mayors, past and present,' 
the past ones plain, and the present one colored as the print 
shops have it. Then stalked in, with many a characteristic bow 
and salaam, ambassadors in glowing uniforms from all the ends 
of the earth — from Brazil to Cathay. Now, with that suavity 



AROUND THE. WORLD. 59 

born of complacency to constituents, corrected bj the occasional 
tilts of the forensic arena, come members of Parliament, while, 
sandwiched between, are the representatives, in coats or trailing 
garments, of the oldest families of England. I need not saj?- 
that I do not mean the Browns and Smiths, who may be old, 
but have had no college of heralds to count all the sprouts of 
their family trees. 

" There was Eobert Browning, the poet; William Black, the 
novelist ; Edmund Yates, the writer ; and Arthur Sullivan, the 
musician. There were dozens of others whose single entities 
would inflame the hostess of an ordinary drawing-room with 
pride enough to withstand the boasts of her rivals for six 
months, but I cannot make my letter a dictionary of authors. 

" Every American resident responded to the Minister's 
invitation. The Morgans and the Peabodys, Mr. James 
McHenry, Chevalier Wikoff, Mr. G. W. Smalley, Chief Justice 
Shea, Mr. Moncure D. Conway, Mr. Newton Crane, Consul at 
Manchester ; Mrs, Fairchild, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and her 
daughter, Maud ; Mr. and Mrs. Ives, Mrs. Hicks, and Miss 
Nannie Schomberg were among the most prominent." 

The entertaining and vivacious Olive Logan gives the 
following account of the reception : — 

" Most people who have dived into cotemporary English 
fiction, or who have read the pretty stories told of levees and 
receptions in London or Paris, would be able to fill in for them- 
selves the picture of what to-night's reception was like ; but 
then they might set about taking off a little tinsel here and a 
little grandeur there, and so minimize the affair until it looked 
no brighter than one of the thousand and one affairs that take 
place here during the season. Thus they would do unconscious 
injustice to a remarkable historical event, and what I have to 
say is mtended to round off the outline that such meagre infor- 
mation as the stately society man vouchsafes to his friends ; as, 
for instance — 

" 'At the Pierreponts' reception to Grant? Ya-as ; great crusli ; everybody was there.' 

'' In President Grant ' society,' .nay, the State, saw a first 
class lion, and the smaller leonines of all degrees are, for the 



60 GRA'NTS TOUR 

moment, put on the shelf. Let us go and see him, then, 
attended and surrounded by all London's distinguished men and 
lovely women, the wearers of England's aristocratic and society 
greatness. 

"Our road is through the quiet of great West End squares 
and long, silent streets where the rich and the puissant abide in 
palatial houses. We find ourselves in St. James', and at last the 
carriage turns into the great quadrangle of Cavendish square, 
with its railed in patch of verdare in the centre and towering 
mansions on the four sides. All this is dimly seen now, for the 
night has wrapped the square in shadows save where ruby 
gleams of subdued brightness stream through the closely drawn 
scarlet silk curtains of the grand old mansion wherein dwells 
Minister Pierrepont. 

" There is a line of carriages before the door, each quickly 
depositing its load of beauty and distinction, and driving away. 
A solid framework has been built over the pavement, sujjporting 
an awning. The entire pathway is covered with scarlet carpet. 
A number of deferential link bearers, wearing scarlet tunics, 
move about opening carriage doors and turning on the light of 
bull's eyes or square old-fashioned lanterns, so that no tiny foot 
in satin shoon shall make a false step. 

"Beyond, in the street and lining the portal on each side as 
closely as the special policemen on duty would allow, are massed 
in groups detachments of England's poor and hungry to get a 
glimpse of the fairy land wherein abide riches, beauty, high 
birth and distinction, won by sword, pen or pencil. We have, 
as we pass in, but a glance, alas ! for those in the street, with 
the officious policemen pushing them back into the shadows 
beyond ; but I can hear one ask an oflBcer, as he recedes : — 

" 'W'ich is 'im ?' 
"'Oo?' (gruffly.) 
" 'Graunt." 
" ' 'E's bin a hour." 

"Wide stood the hospitable doors, inside of which, ranged 
on either side of the hallway, stood statuesquely or bowed 
obsequiously to welcome and direct the guests, a gorgeous array 
of footmen in liveries of blue and gold, and showing in silken 
hose those wondrous padded calves at which jocund Thackeray 



AROUND THE .WORLD. 61 

laughed, and whose fair proportions whimsical Leech so often 
depicted in Punch. 

"The second glance after entering the doors brings to the 
eye a beautiful vision of rich colors, and to the sense the 
perfumes of a thousand flowers. Flowers everywhere ! From 
ground to roof, peeping in clusters of brilliant bloom amid cool 
frameworks of rich greens, they glow in the mellow light of the 
chandeliers like gems, until their fragrance seems a thing almost 
palpable. Amid the surging crowd of guests, some in gay 
military or diplomatic uniforms, others in floating billows of 
lace or warm shining seas of silk, one hears on all sides the 
comment that no such floral display has even been seen before 
in a, private mansion in London. 

" From the balcony of the topmost story de])end groups of 
American flags in gay, saucy, bright, new hues of red, white 
and blue silk. They seem put there as gentle reminders of the 
great days gone by amid the Southern swamps, when Grant, 
under his well-worn standard, tattered, torn and faded, performed 
deeds of valor that all good men and true remember. 

" In the elegant and flower-adorned boudoir at the head of 
the stairs, stood Mrs. Pierrepont and General Grant in the order 
named. Directly behind General Grant was stationed Colonel 
A. Badeau, who is actually United Stat-s Consul General, but 
who during Grant's stay acts as his aide-de-camp in waiting, 
permission having been received from the proper authorities to 
allow him to perform this service near his old commander. 

" At the moment of my approach I find the ex-Premier of 
England, Mr. Gladstone, being presented to the ex-President, 
and warmly pressing his hand and congratulating him, while the 
stately and even beautiful Mrs. Gladstone, dressed in a dedicate 
costume of blue and white, with a cluster of fine diamonds 
setting off the long blue plume in her hair, is discoursing with 
Mrs. Grant. 

" Scarcely has the ex-Premier passed on, when the imposing 
head of John Bright, Quaker, reformer, liberal leader and out- 
spoken friend of the Union in its dark days, is seen. Crowned 
with a wealth of snowy hair which surmounts the massive, 
cheery face, the head of this man of the people would be 



62 GRANT'S TOUR 

notable in any gathering, and is doubly so here, as the grand 
old Quaker shakes hands with the General. 

" Hither comes the usually solemn-faced Earl Derby, without 
the weight of the Eastern question on his shoulders ; after him 
the Earl of Shattesbury, of beneficent doings, and then the 
Marquis and Marchioness of Westminster, perhaps the richest 
peer in England ; nay, half the peers and peeresses of the realm. 

" Oh, but for time and space to tell the tale of the gorgeous 
pageantry which moves before the eyes, now shifting into 
brilliant groups, now breaking into spots of color, changing and 
mingling in charming perplexity, but all dazzling the sense not 
alone by gorgeous tints or subtle tones, but in the added thought 
that the men and women who give being to the throng are the 
essence of the wealth, the beauty and the might of Old England. 
It is perhaps the most brilliant social episode in the history of 
the American nation. 

" 'Washington never enjoyed anything like it,' said one 
distinguished American, when the Marchioness of Westmin- 
ster, smiling her sweetest, was talking to Grant, while half a 
dozen countesses were waiting for a chance to have a word with 
him. 

" Besides the gathering of the nobility, the reception has 
brought hundreds of Americans, drawn hither from all parts of 
Europe in the desire to be present at the fete. Beautiful 
American women are here in great number, adding to the eclat 
of the occasion, 

" General Grant is attired in plain evening dress, which is 
conspicuous in its plainness amid the stars, garters and ribbons 
worn by many of lesser note ; even the Japanese Minister is 
more gorgeous. As for the Chinese Embassy, no tea chest ever 
equaled their curious splendor. T hear many regrets that Grant 
did not wear the uniform, that the English people might see the 
imposing garb. 

" Mrs. Grant wears a toilet of claret-colored stamped velvet 
and cream satin, high-necked and with long sleeves. 

" Mrs. Pierrepont is clad in an elaborate costume of scarlet 
and black. 

"Perhaps the most conspicuous person after General Grant 



AROUND THE WORLD. ' 63 

is the Lord Mayor of London, rigged out in the odd parapher- 
nalia of his office, with his long cloak and massive gold chain. 
It is as good as a feast to see this rosy, good-natured potentate 
gossiping pleasantly with those presented to him, and not seem- 
ing a bit proud, though only to be lord for a twelvemonth — a 
fact one would imagine enough to stiffen him into the seventh 
heaven of arrogance. 

" He easily makes his way through the crowd, which is so 
dense that other people have to be motionless ; but is he not 
Lord Mayor — a king sitting where all is money — and High 
Cockalorum of Temple Bar, through which even the Queen may 
not pass without his high and mighty permission ? 

" Every one remarks how well the General looks. Surrounded 
by fine specimens of English manhood, through whose sturdy 
veins courses the bluest blood, the robust form and rosy face of 
Grant are conspicuous in their healthy appearance. Mr. Glad- 
stone's complexion had the hue of illness when his face was 
near Grant's, and Mr. Bright's pallor was noticeable. 

" 'He looks like a soldier,' said a viscountess by my side to a 
right honorable with a scarlet ribbon at his neck. 

" So flowed the stream of conversation, while he to whom all 
this honor was paid stood with a bearing as composed and 
unfluttered as when in ' Ole Virginny ' the drum tap beat to 
action and the boys went marching along." 

At half-past twelve Mrs. Pierrepont and General Grant 
came down stairs and, standing in the lower hall, bade 
farewell to the parting guests, while Mrs. Grant, Mr. 
Pierrepont and Colonel Badeau took up position in a sep- 
arate room, the amiable Secretary of Legation, Mr. 
William J. Hoppin, hovering over one and all. The 
children of both nations left the Legation with a feeling 
that the tie between them had been strengthened in 
the ' generous hospitality of the American representa- 
tive and the cordial response of England's best and 
greatest. 



64 GRANT'S TOUR 

In a letter to George W. Childs, Esq., of Pliiladelphia, 
General Grant tlius describes Ms impression of his recep- 
tion in England : 

" London, Eng., June 19, 1877. 

" My Dear Mr. Childs : — 

" After an unusually stormy passage for any season of the 
year, and continuous sea-sickness generally among the passengers 
after the second day out, we reached Liverpool Monday after- 
noon, the 28th of May. Jesse and I proved to be among the 
few good sailors. Neither of us felt a moment's uneasiness 
during the voyage. 

"I had proposed to leave Liverpool immediately on arrival, 
and proceed to Lontlon, where I knew our Minister had made 
arrangements for a formal reception, and had accepted for me a 
few invitations of courtesy, but what was my surprise to find 
nearly all the shipping in port of Liverpool decorated with flags 
of all nations, and from the mainmast of each the flag of the 
Union was most conspicuous. 

" The docks were lined with as many of the population as 
could find standing room, and the streets to the hotel where it 
was understood my pai'ty would stop, were packed. The demon- 
stration was, to all appearances, as hearty and as enthusiastic 
as in Philadelphia on our departure. 

" The Mayor was present with his state carriage to convey us 
to the hotel, and after that to his beautiful country residence, 
some six miles out, where we were entertained at dinner with a 
small party of gentlemen, and remained over night. The 
following day a largo party was given at the of&cial residence of 
the Mayor in the c'ty, at which there were some one hundred and 
fifty of the distinguished citizens and officials of the corporation 
present. Pressing invitations were sent from most of the 
cities of the kingdom to have me visit them. I accepted for a 
day at Manchester, and stopped a few moments at Leicester and 
one other place. The same hearty welcome was shown at each 
place, as you have no doubt seen. 

" The press of the country has been exceedingly kind and 
courteous. So far, I have not been permitted to travel in a 
regular train, much less in a common car. The Midland road. 



AROUND THE WORLD. ^k> 

which penetrates a great portion of the island, including Wales 
and Scotland, have extended to me the courtesy of their road 
and a Pullman car to take me wherever I wish to go during the 
whole of my stay in England. We arrived in London on 
Monday evening, the 80th of May, when I found our Minister 
had accepted engagements for me up to the 27th of June, leaving 
but a few spare days in the interval. 

" On Saturday last we dined with the Duke of Wellington, 
and last night the formal reception at Judge Pierrepont's was 
held. It was a great success, most brilliant in the numbers, 
rank and attire of the audience, and was graced by the presence 
of every American in the city who had called on the Minister or 
left a card for me. I doubt whether London has ever seen a 
private house so elaborately or tastefully decorated as was our 
American Minister's last night. I am deeply indebted to him 
for the pains he has taken to make my stay pleasant, and the 
attentions extended to our country. I appreciate the fact, and 
am proud of it, that the attentions I am receiving are more for 
our country than for me personally. I love to see our country 
honored and respected abroad, and I am proud to believe that it 
is by most all nations, and by some even loved. It has always 
,been my desire to see all jealousy between England and the 
United States abated, and every sore healed. Together they are 
more powerful for the spread of commerce and civilization than 
all others combined, and can do more to remove causes of wars 
by creating moral interests that would be so much endangered by 
war. * * * * * * U. S. Gbant." 



CHAPTEH lY. 

GEANT ATTENDS AN EXHIBITION AT BATH EECEPTION 

AT GENERAL BADEAU's PRESENTED AT COURT THE 

FREEDOM OF THE CITY AN INTERESTING CEREMONY 

FETE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE BREAKFAST AT 

GEORGE SM alley's A GATHERING OF BRAINS A 

FINE AFFAIR DINNER WITH THE PRINCE OF WALES. 

On the 8tli of June General Grant attended the agri- 
cultural exhibition at Bath. His reception by the citizens 
was a very cordial one. He was met by the Mayor and 
the Town Committee, besides thousands of citizens. The 
Mayor presented an address of welcome, assuring him that 
the citizens always accepted with gratification any oppor- 
tunity of showing their respect for his great country, and 
giving prominent notice that the great services of the Gen- 
eral himself are duly appreciated. General Grant replied 
briefly, expressing his thanks. 

Having dined with the Duke of Devonshire, at whose 
table he met about fifty members of the House of Lords, 
and others, the General proceeded to the residence of Gen- 
eral Badeau, in Beaufort Gardens, where he was given a 
brilliant reception. Outside the Badeau mansion, was a 
long line of elegant equipages, while several j)olicemen 
were stationed in front of the house to prevent confusion. 
The interior of the house was profusely decorated with 
shrubs and flowers. When General Grant arrived, a dis- 
tinguished company had alr.eady assembled in the drawing- 
room, by whom he was warmly greeted. Among the first 
to welcome him was Mr. Gladstone, who has been a very 
cordial friend of General Grant from the first. 

66 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 



67 



As General Grant moved about tlie saloon he encoun- 
tered Lord Northbrooke, Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord O'Hagan, 
Sir Cbarles Dilke, Sir Patrick and Lady Grant, who claim 
some kind of kinship with our illustrious countryman ; 
the Lord Bishoj) of Bristol and Gloucester, Jacob and 
M2}s. Bright, Mr. Kinglake, Tom Hughes, who has become 
almost a hero to Americans ; Mr. Macmillan, the publisher 
of the celebrated magazine bearing his name ; Mr. Wal- 
ter, the proprietor of the Times; Mr. Both wick, of the 
Morning Pod., m>A Baron Beuter. 




BATH, ENGLAND. 

Among the Americans present were Minister Pierre- 
pont and Mrs. Pierrepont, Mr. Hoppin, of the American 
Legation ; General Torbert, Consul General of the United 
States in France ; Mrs. Torbert, Mrs. Hicks, George W. 
Smalley and wife, William Winter, the critic ; Olive Logan 
and her husband. Mr. Wirt Sikes and Miss Kate Field. 



6S G J? ANT'S TOUR 

On the following day General Grant lunclied with 
Lord Granville, and in the evening dined with the Mar- 
quis of Hertford. After the banquet, a reception was 
held in the drawing-room. 

On Thursday, Minister Pierrepont presented to the 
Court, General and Jesse R. Grant, Mr. James Birney, 
Minister at Hague ; General Badeau, aid-de-camp in wait- 
ing; Mr. N. M. Beckwith, Mr. Arthur Beckwith and 
Mr. Wirt Sikes. On the Sabbath following, the General 
and his wife attended church in the morning, and spent 
the remainder of the day in rest. 

The freedom of the City of London was bestowed upon 
General Grant upon the 15th of June. This is no com- 
mon honor. The greatest heroes and the proudest mon- 
archs have been reckoned among the " freemen." George 
ELL, who always expressed a supreme contempt for ordi- 
nary matters and mortals, had to acknowledge that the 
City of London could bestow a franchise more valuable 
than all the knighthoods and baubles of the crown. Since 
his day hundreds of men, whose works will ever be re- 
garded as the gems of history — statesmen, scientists, law- 
yers, merchants, princes, have been recorded in the grand 
old book, which is prized by the Corporation of London 
more than all the privileges and immunities granted by 
the government. George Peabody, the noble and benevo- 
lent American merchant, whose name is ever uttered by the 
poor of the English metropolis with affectionate reverence, 
was made a freeman. General Garibaldi, the liberator of 
Italy and the father of Italian unity, received the same 
privilege. The Shah of Persia, the Sultan of Turkey, the 
Czar of Bussia, Prince Leopold of Belgium, Napoleon HI., 
General Blucher and M. Thiers were also presented with 
the rights, privileges and immunities of the dwellers within 
" ye Bishopgate " and Temple Bar. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 69 

It has often been asked, What is the freedom of the 
City of London? It is simply this — a small slip of 
parchment, inscribed with the name and titles of the j)er- 
son to whom it is to be presented, guarantees to the holder 
and his children after him, forever, the right to live and 
trade within the city prescribed by St. Clements in the 
west, Bishopgate in the east, Pentonville on the north and 
the shores of the Thames on the south, without having to 
pay a tax on the goods as they are brought through the 
gates. It exempts them from naval and military service 
and toils and duties throughout the United Kingdom. It 
insures to his children the care of the Chamberlain, who, 
in case they are left orphans, takes charge of their property 
and administers it in their interest until they arrive at 
years of maturity. The parchment bears the seal and 
signature of the Lord Mayor and Chamberlain and is 
generally ornamented with ribbon, and illuminated. It is 
always enclosed in a long, thin gold box, and is intended, 
of course, as an heirloom. 

When the Corporation have decided to confer the 
parchment upon any distinguished individual, he is noti- 
fied in the old-fashioned style by the City Chamberlain, 
whose missive begins, "You are hereby commanded to 
appear in the Common Hall," &c., naming the date when 
the City Fathers will be present. He is met in the 
Common Hall by the Mayor and Councillors. The City 
Chamberlain informs him that the city has decided to 
confer upon him the privileges of a free citizen, and 
makes an address, usually applaudatory of the special 
services or merits of the individual. The recipient signs 
his name in the Clerk's Book, and this official and the 
City Chamberlain then sign their names beneath as 
guarantors or "compurgators." becoming, according to 
the rule, responsible for his acts as a citizen. The recipi- 



70 GRANT'S TOUR 

ent then steps forward, the oath is administered by the 
Chamberlain, who demands that he shall be in all and 
every respect, true and loyal to the interests of the city ; 
he shakes hands with the Mayor, Chamberlain, Clerk and 
Councillors, and the gold box is committed to his care. 
This is the method usually adopted toward all who are 
not within the category of royalty. 

Jealous of their power and prestige, and with the view of 
checking the arrogance of former kings and queens, the 
Corporation of London would not allow the crowned 
heads to pass beneath Temple Bar without permission. 
Whenever the royalty desired to enter the city the "gra- 
ciousness" came from the Lord Mayor. He would meet 
majesty with the keys of the city in his hand, and when 
he had unlocked the gates, in imagination, he led the way 
into town. Thus in presenting the freedom of the city to 
monarchs the Lord Mayor meets them in state at Temple 
Bar. The 'royal cortege, with an escort of the Horse 
Guards, usually leaves Buckingham Palace, passes into 
Trafalgar square, thence to Charing Cross, along the 
Strand to St. Clement's boundary, on the west side of 
Temple Bar. The Mayor, attended by the Chamberlain, 
advances to the carriage of the royal guest, makes a brief 
address and offers the keys of the city, which are simply 
touched and handed back. The Mayor returns to his 
state coach, and, preceded by a strong detatchment of 
police, passes down Fleet street, past Chancery lane and 
the principal courts to Farringdon, across Farringdon to 
Ludgate Hill, up Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's, passing 
round the cathedral to the south, thence to Cheapside, east- 
ward along Cheapside to King street and down King street 
to the Guildhall. The militia of the city and the sergeant- 
at-arms (mace bearer) receives the guest at the door, and he 
is received by the peers and the company present standing. 
/ 



AROUND THE WORLD. 71 

The reception given by the Corporation of London to 
General Grant was a complete success. The event excited 
unusual interest even in cynical London. The day was 
unusually sunny and clear, being what many of the spec- 
tators called "Queen's weather." At an early hour the 
streets in the vicinity of the Guildhall were barricaded and 
all traffic prohibited that might interfere with the free ar- 
rival and departure of carriages through King street and 



LOMBARD STREET. 



the Old Jewry. Traffic was suspended east to the Bank 
of England, the Stock Exchange, Lombard street, and 
King William and Moorgate streets, and west as far as St. 
]Martin's-le-Grand and St. Paul's. In fact, all the scenes 
of Lord Mayor's day were reinacted. 

General Grant arrived most unostentatiously in the pri- 
vate carriage of the American Minister, accompanied by 
his wife, Jesse (his son), Mr. and Mrs. Pierrepont and 



72 GRANTS TOUR 

General Badeau. Ten thousand spectators crowded to the 
edge of the barricades and greeted him with that hearty 
cheering peculiar to the English when they desire to wel- 
come a stranger of distinction. 

As Grant alighted he was met by a deputation of Lon- 
don Alderman, arrayed in their gorgeous crimson robes 
and with the gold chains of office glittering .in the sun- 
light. As he paseed on into the corridor a company of 
the City Guards and Yeomen presented arms and the 
crowd again gave a long cheer. It was a brilliant scene. 

The distinguished party were then escorted into the li- 
brary. Here the scene became bewildering in its antique 
splendor. The stately hall with its stately alcoves lined 
with books, and its many colored 'windows which blushed 
in the golden sunlight ; the ladies attired in their varie- 
gated spring toilets, the Aldermen in scarlet, and the 
Councilmen in their mazarine robes, all presented an 
ensemble at once charming and inspiring. The band 
played "Hail Columbia" as the party entered. 

General Grant walked in a dignified and self-possessed 
manner toward the Lord Mayor's chair and took a seat to 
the left of the dais, amid the most cordial cheering. The 
City Chamberlain arose and read the formal address on 
behalf of the Mayor, tendering to the General the right 
hand of fellowship, and referring at length to the fact 
that he was the first President of the American Republic 
who had been elevated to the dignity of citizenship of the 
city of London. 

Alluding to the kindness extended by America to the 
Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur, he said the Corpora- 
tion received General Grant, desiring to compliment the 
General and the country in his person, by conferring on 
him the honorary freedom of their ancient city, a freedom 
existing eight centuries before his ancestors landed on 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 73 

Plymouth Rock; nay, even before tlie time of the 
Norman conqueror. London, in conferring the honor, 
recognized the distinguished mark he has left on 
American history, his magnanimity, his triumphs, and 
his consideration for his vanquished adversaries. It also 
recognized the conciliatory policy of his administration. 
They, the Corporation, fervently hoped that he would 
enjoy his visit to England ; that he might live long, and 
be spared to witness the two great branches of the Anglo- 
Saxon family go on in their career of increasing amity 
and mutual respect, in an honest rivalry for the advance- 
ment of the peace, the liberty, and the morality of man- 
kind. In conclusion, the speaker said: — "Nothing now 
remains, General, but that I should present to you an 
illuminated copy of the resolution of this honorable court, 
for the reception of which an appropriate casket is pre- 
paring, and, finally, to offer you, in the name of this 
honorable court, the right hand of fellowship as a citizen 
of London." The Chamberlain then shook General 
Grant's right hand, amid loud cheering. 

Grant arose and very briefly and appropriately 
thanked the Court for the distinguished honor, and then 
signed his name to the roll of honor, with the Clerk and 
Chamberlain as compurgators. 

The company then proceeded to the banqueting hall, 
where seats had been provided for 1,000 guests. The Lord 
Mayor presided. At his right hand sat General and Mrs. 
Grant, Minister and Mrs. Pierrepont, General Badeau and 
Jessie Grant. 

Among the distinguished guests present were Sir Staf- 
ford Northcote, Lord and Lady Tenterden, Mr. Stansfield, 
Mr. A. E. Foster, several peers prominent in the House of 
Lords, a number of the members of the House of Com- 
mons, consuls, merchants and other citizens of London. 



74 GRANT'S TOUR 

The room was decorated with miniature English and 
American flags and the tables presented an interesting and 
artistic appearance. 

After the dejeuner the toastmaster, dressed in a gor- 
geous silk sash formed of stars and stripes, arose, and the 
bugle sounded. The first toast was "The Queen," the 
second was " The health of General Grant," which was 
received by the guests standing and amid great cheering. 
The Lord Mayor then said : 

" I, as Chief Magistrate of the City of Londoa, and on the 
part of the Corporation, offer you as hearty a welcome as the sin- 
cerity of language can convey. Your presence here, as the late 
President of the United States, is specially gratifying to all 
classes of the community, and we feel that, although this is your 
first visit to England, it is not a stranger we greet, but a tried 
and honored friend. Twice occupying, as you did, the exalted 
position of President of the United States, and therefore one of 
the foremost representatives of that country, we confer honor 
upon ourselves by honoring you. Let me express both the 
hope and belief that when you take your departure you will feel 
that many true friends of yours personally, and also of your 
countrymen, have been left behind. I have the distinguished 
honor to propose your health. May you long live to enjoy the 
best of health and unqualified happiness." 

The gold casket, containing the freedom of the city, is 
in the cinque cento style, oblong, the corners mounted by 
American eagles and beautifully decorated. On the re- 
verse side is a view of the entrance to the Guildhall, and 
an appropriate inscription. At the ends are two figures, 
also in gold, finely modelled and chased, representing the 
city of London and the United States, and bearing their 
respective shields, the latter executed in rich enamel. 
At the corners are double columns laurel wreathed with 
corn and cotton, and on the cover a cornucopia, emblem- 
atic of the fertility and prosperity of the United States. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 75 

The rose, shamrock and thistle are also introduced. The 
cover is surmounted by the arms of the city of London. 
The casket is supported by American eagles, modelled 
and chased in gold, the whole standing on a velvet plinth 
decorated with stars and stripes. 

General Grant's reply was made with deep emotion, 
and was simply to return his thanks for the unexpected 
honor paid him, and his desire to say much more for their 
brilliant reception than he could express. 

" The United States " was coupled with the name of 
Mr. Pierrepont, who responded in a hapjoy speech, com- 
plimenting Grant and England. The final toast was "The 
City of London," and responded to by the Lord Mayor. 
The company then dispersed with " three cheers for Gen- 
eral Grant and the United States." 

After leaving the Guildhall the company proceeded to 
the Mansion House, at the corner of what was once the 
famous Bucklesbury and Poultry. Here they took coffee 
with the Mayor. 

Then the Mayor's state carriage was ordered and they 
drove over to Sydenham to the Crystal Palace, arriving 
at the main entrance at half-past four o'clock P. M. They 
were received with the most boisterous enthusiasm. As 
they passed under the rotunda cheer after cheer went up 
for the " American General." It is estimated that there 
were at least thirty thousand persons present. 

A tour of the vast building was rapidly made, the party 
dining in the west wing. General Grant avoided all 
demonstrations made by the crowd. 

When darkness set in Grant was escorted to the place 
of honor in the Queen's corridor of the palace, where he 
remained for some time smoking and chatting with his 
friends and their ladies. 

A grand display of fireworks took place during the 



76 ' GRANT'S TOUR 

evening. The twiliglit was beautiful and there was a per- 
fect Mediterranean sky. The principal pyrotechnic dis- 
play pieces were the portrait of Grant and the Capitol at 
Washington, which were received with prolonged cheers. 

At about eleven o'clock the demonstration finished, and 
the party returned to town in their carriages. General 
Grant, on parting with the Mayor, expressed his extreme 
gratification and pleasure. It was like a holiday at the 
Palace. The trains running to and from Pimlico, London 
Bridge and Ludgate Hill, were literally laden down, and 
the usual jollity of the British sightseer was especially 
perceptible on the journey back to town. 

On the following day the. General dined at Kensing- 
ton with Princess Louise. 

The days must have passed pleasantly for General 
Grant, if a round of honors and feasting be at all enjoy- 
able. He was destined to receive every phase of the 
pleasures which society gives itself. He had already had 
dinners, rece23tions and civic honors, but not until the 
18th of June did he encounter his first breakfast enter- 
tainment in England. This occurred at the beautiful 
house, in Hyde Park square, of Mr. George M. Smalley, 
the accomplished correspondent of the New York Tribune. 
Everything was recherche^ and the company of the 
choicest. 

Among the gufests were Professor Huxley, the 
scientist; Matthew Arnold, the philosophic thinker; 
Sir Charles Dilke, the advanced Republican ; Sir Fred- 
erick Pollock, Robert Browning, the poet ; A. W. King- 
lake, the author of "Eothen;" Anthony Trollope, the 
novelist ; Tom Hughes, M. P. ; Meredith Townsend, 
editor of the Spectator ; Frank Hill, editor of the Daily 
News ; Right Hon. James Stansfield, Minister Pierre- 
pont, General Badeau, and others. John Bright sent his 



AROUND THE WORLD. 77 

regrets at his inability to attend on account of a previous 
engagement. It would be impossible to give in a few 
sentences an idea of the pleasant nature of the gathering. 
Around a board laden with the succulent delights of the 
season, the "garnish of brains," of which dear old Oliver 
Goldsmith sang, insured a flow of conversation worth a 
great deal to have the privilege to enjoy. 

In the evening General Grant was the guest of the 
Reform Club, Earl Granville, Knight of the Garter, 
presiding. Among the guests were George H. Boker, 
American Minister to Russia ; General Badeau, Right 
Hon. William E. Foster, the Liberal statesman ; Right 
Hon. William E. Baxter, the great friend of the United 
States and foe of established churches ; W. P. Adam, Sir 
Charles Dilke, Mr. Mundella, M. P. ; Frederick Harrison, 
J. C. MacDonald, Richard Baxter, Chairman of the Re- 
form Club, and many others, numbering forty, and repre- 
senting the liberal ideas which the club sets itself the task 
of embodying. 

The dinner itself was among the finest ever given in 
London, the cuisine of this association of Liberal gentle- 
men being celebrated all over the world, and free from all 
danger of its chef ever being called on to fight for his 
reputation in the courts, as the Napoleon of the soup tureen 
who composes banquets for a rival club was obliged to do 
of late. The table was a picture in itself, not to speak of 
the good things between the top and bottom of the menu. 

Earl Granville, as soon as the cloth was removed, pro- 
posed the health of Her Majesty the Queen. To this the 
Right Hon. William E. Foster responded in a singularly 
eloquent speech. In the course of his remarks he referred 
to the great service of General Grant in the cause of 
human freedom. He dwelt with particular emphasis upon 
the importance to civilization of the cultivation of arnica- 



7o GRANT'S TOUR 

ble relations between tlie two great countries, England and 
the United States. With great felicity he pictured the 
results of such a state of friendliness, and elicited contin- 
ued cheering. Passing on to a more practical branch of 
his subject, he amplified upon the opportunities for ad- 
vancement to the human race which a hearty concord be- 
tween the two nations would give. He saw in it the 
acceleration of discoveries in every branch of science, the 
material progress of the masses and the setting up of loft- 
ier standards of private taste and public virtue. He j^aid 
a marked compliment to President Hayes uj^on his " re- 
union policy," which would end by making the United 
States what they were before the war — really united, in 
addition to what it has been ever since the war — free in 
every respect. In conclusion, Mr. Forrester proposed the 
health of President Ha3^es and the j^eople of the United 
States, calling on Minister Boker to respond. 

Mr. Boker made a brief response, in which he dwelt 
ujDon the importance of sustaining friendly relations be- 
tween England and America, and the anxiety of America 
for English amity during the pending war. 

Earl Granville responded by proposing the health of 
" the illustrious statesman and warrior. General Ulysses S. 
Grant," alluding in the course of his pithy speech to the 
beneficent results accruing to both nations from the settle- 
ment of the Alabama Claims. " England and America," 
he said, " nay, civilization throughout the universe, recog- 
nize in General Grant one of those extraordinary instru- 
ments of divine providence bestowed in its beneficence to 
the human race." 

Upon rising to reply to the toast. General Grant was 
greeted with a perfect storm of applause. " I am over- 
whelmed," he said, " with the kindness shown by English- 
men to me and expressed to America. I regret that I am 



AROUND THE WORLD. 79 

unable adequately to express — even with tlie temptation 
to do so of the omnipresent enterprise of the New Yovh 
Herald — to express my thanks for the manifold fraternal 
courtesies I have received. Words would fail, especially 
within the limitation of a public speech, to express my 
feelings in this regard. I hope, when an opportunity is 
offered me of calmer and more deliberate moments, to put 
on record my grateful recognition of the fraternal senti- 
ments of the English peo23le, and the desire of America 
to render an adequate response. The speech of Earl 
Granville," he continued, " has inspired thoughts in my 
bosom which it is impossible for me adequately to present. 
Never have I lamented so much as now my poverty in 
phrases to give due expression to my affection for the 
mother country." 

General Grant spoke under the pressure of unwonted 
feeling, and continued with unusual eloquence to express 
the hope that his words, so far as they had any value, 
would be heard in both countries, and lead to the union 
of the English speaking people and the fraternity of the 
human race. During his speech the General was frequent- 
ly interrupted with applause ; indeed, the cheering was 
almost continuous while he was on his feet. When he 
had resumed his seat, his health was drunk amid tremen- 
dous applause. Soon after the guests departed, each feeling, 
no doubt, that such meetings served to cement more closely 
the human race in the bonds of a common brotherhood. 

Two days later. General and Mrs. Grant, Minister and 
Mrs. Pierrepont, and Consul General Badeau, dined at 
Marlborough House, with the Prince of Wales. The dinner 
was a a full dress affair. Earls Beaconsfield, Derby, and 
Granville, and the leading members of the government, 
were present. About forty in all sat down to the table. 
The ex-President occupied the seat of honor at the table. 



80 



GRANT'S TOUR 



At the conclusion of the dinner, about midnight, General 
Grant visited the Times establishment. Printing House 
square, in company with Consul General Badeau. He 
was- received by Mr. McDonald and shown through the 
various departments. The General expressed a deep 
interest in the manufacture, machinery and working of the 
Walter press and the folding and type-setting machines. 
After an hour's examination he drove to the Embassy in 
Cavendish square, expressing much satisfaction with his 
trij), and declaring that he had long had a great curiosity 
to know how large newspapers were made. 




CHAPTER V. 

GKEETING FROM IRELAND AT THE LONDON ROYAL 

ITALIAN OPERA AN ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME BAN- 
QUET BY THE TRINITY HOUSE CORPORATION IN THE 

PRESENCE OF ROYALTY A VISIT TO WINDSOR CASTLE 

RECEPTION BY THE QUEEN AN EVENTFUL OCCA- 
SION AGAIN AT LIVERPOOL THE MAYOR's TESTI- 
MONY TO GENERAL GRANT A RECEPTION BY THE 

PRESS THE WELCOME OF THE MECHANICS GRANT's 

OPINION OF THE LABORING MAN THE BANQUET OF 

THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB DEPARTS FROM ENGLAND. 

A deputation of Irish gentlemen waited on ex-Presi- 
dent Grant at General Badeau's residence, on the 20th of 
June, and presented an address, and expressed their grati- 
tude for his aid in procuring from the government of the 
United States recognition of the claims of Mrs. Carroll, 
whose husband was killed in a naval engagement during 
the American civil war. The deputation was presented 
by Mr. Mullaly. Dr. Bradv, a member of Parliament, 
said that he had been greatly gratified, as had all Irishmen 
with whom he had spoken, at the reception which had 
been given General Grant in that country. 

In reply, the General said that it was very gratifying 
to him to know that a case, no doubt worthy and deserv- 
ing, had been righted, and that this act of justice had 
been j^erformed under his government. As far as he was 
concerned, he said that he was simply the Executive, and 
could claim no credit in the matter further than for having 
approved what was done. The Government of the 
United States was much like that of England, and was 



82 GRANT'S TOUR 

divided into three branches, each distinct and independent. 
Of course, his own branch had its share in urging the 
claims of this case, but without legislative action nothing 
could have been done. Soon after, his visitors withdrew. 

■In the evening of the following day. Minister Pierre- 
pont gave a dinner in honor of General Grant. Among 
the guests present was the Prince of Wales, who was 
attended by Major-General Sir Dighton Probyn, con- 
troller of his household. At the table, the General sat at 
the right of the Prince, and Mrs. Pierrepont on the left. 
Mrs. Grant sat opposite the Prince, with the Duke of 
Richmond on her right and Mr. Pierrepont on her left. 
Mesdames Grant and Pierrepont were the only ladies 
present. 

A special performance was given in honor of General 
Grant at the London Poyal Italian Opera, on the evening 
of the 22d. The spacious building was literally crowded. 
At about half-j)ast eight the distinguished visitors entered 
their box. When they had done so the curtain rose, dis- 
closing Mile. Albani and the full chorus of the company, 
behind whom was a group of American flags. Mile. 
Albani then sang the " Star Spangled Banner," with the 
full chorus and orchestra. During the singing the entire 
audience, which had risen at the entrance of the visitors, 
remained standing, as did also General and Mrs. Grant. 
When the song was finished, the visitors were loudly ap- 
plauded, which was acknowledged by General Grant by a 
very polite bow. After this the "Daughter of the Pegi- 
ment" was performed, with Mile. Marmion in the princi- 
pal role. General Grant was obliged to leave early to go 
to the Queen's Ball at Buckingham Palace. The box 
occupied by the visitors was beautifully decorated with 
flowers. For the first time while in England, the General 
appeared dressed in the full uniform of a Major General. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



83 



On June 24tli, General Grant attended a banquet given 
by the Corporation of the Trinity House, the Prince of 




TRINITY HOUSE. 



Wales presiding. Among the distinguished personages 
present were Prince Leopold, Prince Christian, the Prince 
of Leiningen, the Prince of Saxe- Weimar, the Duke of 
Wellington, the Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Derby, 
the Earl of Carnarvon, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Cross 
and Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn. 

In his speech, the Prince of Wales thus referred to 
General Grant: — 

" On the present occasion it is a matter of peculiar gratifica*- 
tion to lis, as Englishmen, to receive as our guest General Grant. 
I can assure him for myself, and for all loyal subjects of the 
Queen, that it has given us the greatest pleasure to see him as a 
guest in this country." 

These words were received with cheers. Earl Carnar- 



84 GRANT'S TOUR 

von proposed the health of the visitors and coupled with 

it General Grant's name. He said : — 

" Strangers of all classes, men of letters, arts, science, state and 
all that has been most worthy and great have, as it were, come to' 
this centre of old civilization. I venture, without disparagement 
to any of those illustrious guests, to say that never has there 
been one to whom we willingly accord a freer, fuller, heartier 
welcome than we do to General Grant. On this occasion, not 
merely because we believe he has performed the part of a distin- 
guished general, nor because he has twice filled the highest of&ce 
which the citizens of his great country can fill, but because we 
look upon him as representing that good will and affection which 
ought to subsist between us and the United States. It has been 
my duty to be connected with the great Dominion of Canada, 
stretching several thousand miles along the frontier of the 
United States, and during the last three or four years I can 
truthfully say that nothing impressed me more than the inter- 
change of friendly and good offices which took place between the 
two countries, under the auspices of President Grant." 

General Grant replied : — 

That he felt more impressed than he had ever felt before 
on any occasion. He came here under the impression that this 
was Trinity House, and that trinity consisted of the army, navy 
and peace. He thought it was a place of quietude, where there 
would be no talk of toasts. He had. been therefore naturally 
surprised at hearing both. He had heard some remarks from 
His Eoyal Highness which compelled him to say a word in re- 
sponse. He begged to thank His Highness for these remarks. 
There had been other things said during the evening highly 
gratifying to him. Not the least gratifying to hear that there 
were occasionally in this country, party fights as well as in Amer- 
ica, He had seen before now a war between three departments 
of the State, the executive, the judicial and legislative. He had 
not seen the political parties in England go so far as that. He 
would imitate their chaplain, who had set a good example of 
oratory — that was shortness — and say no more than simply thank 
His Boyal Highness and the company on behalf of the visitors. 



AROUND THE WORLD, 



85 



The gathering was a pleasant one, and served to cement 
the two countries represented more closely together. 

An event of great importance occurred on Tuesday, 
June 26th. It was nothing less than the visit of General 
Grant and suite to the Queen. They left London by the 
five P. M. from Paddington, and arrived at Windsor at 
thirty-five minutes past five. The train on which they 
left was in charge of a special superintendent, and the 
journey was through the lovely scenery of Middlesex, 
Surrey and Berks. The guests arrived before the expected 
hour, and consequently Sir Thomas Biddulph, who had 
been delegated to receive them, was not at the station, and 
therefore their arrival was unceremonious. 




GREEN PARK. 



When they arrived at the castle, they found that Her 
Majesty and Princess Beatrice were out riding in the 
Green Park, they not expecting their guests until a later 



86 GRANT'S TOUR 

hour. General Grant did not express any disappoint- 
ment, but seemed - desirous of utilizing the time he would 
have to wait by examining the grand pile of buildings, 
especially the first fortress of the group, which was built 
by William the Conquerer. After waiting a few minutes, 
the party entered the celebrated Lancaster Tower and 
repaired to the apartments where they were to await the 
return of the Queen. While so waiting, they amused 
themselves with descriptions of the lovely views from the 
windows of the tower. It was a view replete with beauty 
and variety. Away to the west was the silvery-looking 
Thames, winding through the level country in the dis- 
tance ; nearer were pretty villages, straggling farmhouses, 
detached villas, and huge, quaint-looking mansions, the 
luxurious landscape of the royal forest and park, irregular 
and lovely in aspect. To the south a grand panorama 
was presented, almost unparalleled for its magnificence 
•and beauty, combining a far-stretching prospect over the 
distant hills, long since made memorable by fierce battles 
among the illustrious families who struggled to" rule the 
people of England. 

At the time of the visit the weather was somewhat 
cloudy, so that the view was not quite so comprehensive. 
On a clear day a portion of twelve counties can be seen 
from the battlements, namely — Middlesex, Oxford, Essex, 
Hertford, Bucks, Berks, Wilts, Hants, Kent, Surrey, Sus- 
sex and Bedford. The Chamberlain explained this by 
stating that the tower stands upon the summit of a hill. 
With the castle, however, the General was delighted. 
His eyes wandered over the majestic structures, which are 
regarded as emblems of British architecture, admiring 
their noble grandeur, and constantly remarked the special 
histories connected with them. His attention was called 
to the delightful variety which was presented on looking 



AROUND THE WORLD, 87 

down upon the ensemble, the castle, surroundings and town, 
so aptly summed up by an English poet : — 

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, 
Here earth and water seem to meet again ; 
Not chaos like, together crushed and bruised, 
But, as the world, harmoniously confused. 

At half-past seven o'clock the Earl with the Countess of 
Derby arrived, and it was then expected that he had come 
by appointment to be present at the introduction. Hence, it 
was thought the royal hostess was not far off. As the 
castle bell struck eight a commotion was observed among 
the guards below, and in a few seconds the royal equipage 
was seen to enter the courtyard, and the Queen alighted. 
At half-past eight the Queen, surrounded by the members 
of the household, received the Americans in the magnifi- 
cent corridor at the door leading to her private apartments 
in the quadrangle. This quadrangle is formed by the 
state apartments" on the north, by the historic Kound 
Tower on the west, and the private apartments of the 
Queen and of the royal household on the south and east. 
At the west end of the square stands the equestrian statue 
of the martyr King Charles I., who was executed in 1649. 
This was the gift of an old servant to the crown at Hamp- 
ton Court. The pedestal of this statue is a perfect marvel 
of the sculptor's art. On the north, west and south sides 
are fish, implements of commerce, fruits and arms in basso 
relievo by the celebrated Gibbon. The statue and horse 
have for years been the butt of carping critics. The mag- 
nificent gateway of the quadrangle, leading direct from 
the Long Walk, is one of the principal features, the arch- 
way being some twenty-four feet high, and is surmounted 
by machiolated embrasures and apartments for gatekeei^ers 
and attendants. At the eastern corner stands York Tower, 
on the west the Lancaster Tower, which corresponds to 
the York Tower. The tower in honor of the House of 



88 GRANTS TOUR 

Lancaster was built by George IV., in 1824, from plans 
by Jeffery Wyatville. The jorincipal entrance to tlie state 
apartments is directly opposite to this gateway. A small 
clock house surmounts the tower at the entrance to the 
corridor. Above the base of the arch, under which the 
carriages pass to the door, is a fine, richly ornamented 
apartment, (lighted by tall Gothic windows, and contain- 
ing luxuriously canopied niches, containing figures of the 
Black Prince and Edward III.,) which forms a communi- 
cation with the front rooms, reserved for state recej^tions. 
At the northeast corner of the courtyard is the small 
tower, beneath which the visitors approached Her Majesty 
in the corridor. This double corridor is 520 feet long, and 
extends around the south and east sides of the quadrangle. 
In rough weather it is used as a promenade. Entrance 
to the principal rooms is had through folding doors. The 
ceiling, which is very lofty, is divided into large squares, 
the centres bearing a variety of ornamental and beautifully 
gilded devices, representing numerous epochs and events 
known to ancient, modern and biblical history. The pri- 
vate entrance used by the Queen is at the southeast angle, 
a grand structure standing about thirty feet from the face 
of the main building, forming a portico flanked by octan- 
gular towers. In a panel in the centre, between the 
battlements, are sculptured the royal arms in bas-relief 
by the renowned Rosi. Above the portico is the Oak 
E,oom, so called from the extravagant oak wainscoting and 
the delightful color of the walls and ceiling. This is used 
as a morning or breakfast room. Three immense arched 
windows command a view of the entire quadrangle. The 
entrance is truly magnificent, being triangular, with stone 
facing, ornamented with canopied niches, highly sculp- 
tured, communicating vfith the corridor by a landing, 
above which is a huge, elaborately embellished lantern. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 89 

From this room the Queen can see whoever crosses the 
court yard, and during breakfast she can listen to the 
regimental bands on duty at the palace. Gilt and highly 
burnished designs cover the lofty ceiling, the panels and 
doors are richly carved, lovely paintings by the old mas- 
ters adorn the Avails, the upholstering is of rich rep, and 
a thousand gems of art meet the eye at almost every turn. 
Dinner was served in this (oak) room, according to custom, 
which reserves St. George's Hall for State banquets. The 
party was small, because etiquette requires that the Queen 
shall converse with every guest. 

The introductions were made as follows: — Minister 
Pierrepont, advancing, introduced General Grant ; then 
Lord Derby stepped forward with Mrs. Grant. The 
Queen shook hands with them, while the ladies-in-waiting 
simply bowed. This formality at an end, the gentlemen 
led the w^ay to the Oak Room. The Queen sat at the 
head of the table. On her right were respectively Prince 
Leopold, Princess Christian and General Grant ; on her 
left Prince Christian, Princess Beatrice and Minister 
Pierrepont. Then came the Duchess of Wellington, 
Lord Elphinstone and Mrs. Pierrepont ; Lord Derby and 
Mrs. Grant; the Duchess of Poxburgh and Lord Bid- 
dulph ; the Countess of Derby and Jesse Grant. 

During dinner the band of the Grenadier Guards, 
under Dan Godfrey, played in the quadrangle. The 
enjoyment of the party was unconstrained, the Queen 
taking a prominent part in the lively conversation, during 
which all kinds of topics were discussed, American and 
English, political and social. The Princess Beatrice is a 
brilliant conversationalist, and she was particularly inter- 
esting on many American social topics, which she 
thoroughly understood. 

Just before sitting down to dinner the following dis- 



90 GRANT'S TOUR 

patch was handed to General Grant, and which was shown 
to the Queen at dinner : — 

" Your comrades, in annual encampment assembled at Provi- 
dence, R. I., send heartiest greetmgs to their old commander, and 
desire through England's Queen to thank England for Grant's 
reception." 

Most of the ladies were dressed in black with white 
trimmings, owing to the deaths recently of the Queen of 
Holland and the Duke of Hesse Darmstadt. The Queen 
was attired in a similar style, but her toilet comprised a 
very magnificent array of diamonds. After dinner the 
Queen's party proceeded to the corridor for the purpose of 
enabling the visitors to examine it more closely. Here 
they met another party from the Octagon and a lively 
conversation ensued, during which Her Majesty talked 
with every person present. About ten o'clock Her Majesty 
shook hands with her lady guests, bowed to the gentlemen 
and retired, followed by other members of the royal family 
present. The guests then entered one of the magnificient 
drawing rooms along the east front, where they were 
entertained by the Queen's private band. Refreshments 
having been served. General Grant and Mr. Pierrepont 
played whist with the Duchesses Wellington and Rox- 
burgh, during which, of course, the gentlemen were beaten. 
Mr. Pierrepont played badly; so did the ex-President. 
At half-past eleven the Americans retired to the rooms, 
which were in a different part of the palace. 

On the following morning. General and Mrs. Grant 
were driven in the Great Park in a carriage usually used 
by the Queen at half-past ten.' He, with Americans, 
accompanied by Mr. Ward Hunt, First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty and Colonel Gardiner, went to the station and 
took the train for Bishop's road (Paddington) . 

In the evening a state concert was given at Buckingham 



■AROUND THE WORLD. 91 

Palace. General Grant and Mrs. Grant, the Emperor and 
Empress of Brazil, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the 
Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince Christian and the 
Princess Helena, the Princess Louise and the Marquis of 
Lome, and the Duke of Cambridge, were present. Thus 
closed a truly eventful visit. 

On Thursday, the 28th, General Grant again visited. 
Liverpool, where he arrived at a quarter of four in the 
afternoon. Upwards of two hundred persons were present 
at the banquet given in his honor, which was held in the 
large ball-room of the Town Hall, and was a very grand 
affair. The General appeared in the uniform of a Major- 
General, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. 
His seat at the table was on the right of the Mayor, 
while upon his right sat Lieutenant-General Sir Henry 
de Bathe, commander of the forces in the northern dis- 
trict. When he proposed the health of his distinguished 
guest, the Mayor spoke of the sterling qualities he 
possessed as a soldier, which had enabled him to restore 
peace and prosperity to his country. 

General Grant, responding, said the reception he en- 
countered in Great Britain was far beyond his expectations, 
and was such as any living person might feel proud of. 
He believed, however, that it was indicative of the friendly 
relations which existed between two people who were of 
one kindred, blood and civilization. He hoped that friend- 
ship would continue to be cultivated and long endure. 
Beferring to some remarks relative to the British army, 
he said there were as many soldiers now at Aldershott as 
in the regular army of the United States, which had a 
frontier of thousands of miles, but if necessary the United 
States could raise volunteers, and he and Mr. Fairchild 
were examples of what those volunteers were. 

General Grant returned to London on the following 
morning. 



92 GRANT'S TOUR 

In the evening following his return to the English 
metropolis, he attended a reception given him at the 
Grosvenor Hotel by a personal friend belonging to the 
American press. The company numbered forty, consist- 
ing chiefly of distinguished journalists of the London 
press and authors. There were no speeches, the dinner 
being strictly a social and private one. The affair was 
completely successful. Among the guests were the Hon. 
Edwards Pierrepont, Senator Conklin, Jesse Grant, Mgr. 
Capel, Consul-General Badeau, Grimwood Boyce, Sir Jos- 
eph Fahrer, Justin McCarthy, Frank H. Hill, Esq., edi- 
tor of the Daily Neivs ; Mr. MacDonald, of the Times; 
Mr. Macmillan, of Macmillan's Magazine ; George Augus- 
tus Sala, Edmund Yates, of the Woo'ld; ex-Governor Lucius 
Fairchild, United States Consul at Liverpool ; Mr. Pule- 
son, M. P. ; Dr. Brunton, Charles G. Leland, James Nor- 
man Lockyer, editor of Nature ; Edward Hicey, editor of 
the Observer ; Mr. Minto, and others. 

The General exj^ressed himself highly pleased with 
his visit in England. 

General Grant, who had accepted the kind invitation 
of General Badeau to make his home with him, was, on 
the 3rd of July, waited on by a deputation of forty men, 
each representing a different trade, and altogether rej^re- 
senting about a million workingmen. They presented him 
with an address, welcoming him to England, and assuring 
him of their good wishes and deep" regard for the welfare 
and progress of America, Avhere British workmen had 
always received a hearty welcome. Several speeches were 
made by the various members of the deputation, all of 
which were extremely cordial. 

General Grant replied as follows : — 

"In the name of my country, I thank you for the address 
you have presented to me. I feel it a great compHment paid ray 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 93 

government and one to me personally. Since mj arrival on 
British soil, I have received great attentions, whicL. were intended, 
I feel sure, in the same way for my country. I have had 
ovations, free hand-shakings, presentations from different classes, 
from the governrr)ent, from the controlling authorities of cities, 
and have been received in the cities by the populace, but there 
has been no reception which I am prouder of than this to-day. 
I recognize the fact that whatever there is of greatness in the 
United States, as indeed in any other country, is due to labor. 
The laborer is the author of all greatness and wealth. Without 
labor there will be no government, or no leading class, or nothing 
to preserve. With us labor is regarded as highly respectable. 
When it is not so regarded, it is because man dishonors labor 
We recognize that labor dishonors no man, and no matter what 
a man's occupation is, he is eligible to fill any post in the gift of 
the people; his occupation is not considered in selecting, whether 
as a law-maker or as an executor of the law. Now, gentlemen, in 
conclusion, all I can do is to renew my thanks for the address, 
and repeat what I have said before, that I have received nothing 
from any class since my arrival which has given me more 
pleasure." 

After the speech there was an informal exchange of 
courtesies, and the deputation then withdrew. 

In the evening of the same day, a banquet was given 
to General Grant by the United Service Club, of London. 
The Duke of Cambridge presided, having on his right 
General Grant and Lord Hampton, and on his left 
Minister Pierrepont and Lord Strathnairn. Admiral Sir 
Charles Eden was the Vice-President, having on his right 
Sir George Sartorius, and General Sir William Coding- 
ton on his left. There was a very full attendance of 
guests. The Duke of Cambridge proposed the health of 
General Grant. The General, in reply, alluded to the 
visit of the Prince of Wales to the United States. He 
said he knew from all his friends, as well as of his own 
personal knowledge, that His Eoyal Highness was 



94 GRANT'S TOUR 

received, as the son of England's Queen, with the sin- 
cerest respect. He thanked the company for their hospi- 
tality, which was one of the greatest honors he had 
received. It was truly a very pleasant occasion. 

Having, for the time being, fulfilled all his engage- 
ments in England, he started for the Continent on the 5th 
of July. Previous to his departure, he requested General 
Badeau to accept the offer of the municipality of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, the birthplace of Shakspeare, to lunch and 
receive an address from the people of the town on his 
return in the following September. Nearly two weeks 
previous to this, the Mayor had tendered him the hospi- 
talities of the Corporation, expressing the hope that he 
would be able to pay them a visit previous to his tour on 
the Continent, desiring, if he could not do that, he would 
name a time on his return. 

When it became known that he had decided to go to 
Ostend, via Folkestone, a small port a few miles to the 
southwest of Dover, the Mayor of Folkestone telegraphed 
to' Minister Pierrepont that the people of his town de- 
sired to extend to Gen. Grant an offer of the usual hospi- 
talities to distinguished strangers, including an address at 
the Town Hall and a drive to Hythe. The ex-President 
wrote, stating he would be pleased to meet the Mayor and 
Common Council of Folkestone, but that his time would 
be too limited to permit of " any extensive civilities." 

The party, consisting of General and Mrs. Grant, 
Jesse, their son, and Consul General Badeau, left the city 
shortly after eight o'clock. They were accompanied to 
the station by a number of friends, and the party was 
most enthusiastic. With the exception of brief stops at 
Tunbridge and Ashford, there was nothing worthy of note. 

A large crowd had collected at the Folkestone station 
when the train arrived, and as General Grant alighted he 



AROUND THE WORLD. 95 

>was loudly clieered. The Mayor's carriage was in waiting, 
and the party were driven to the Town Hall. Here the 
Mayor received them in his robes of office, surrounded by 
the members of the Town Council and a large number of 
citizens. As the Clerk to the Corporation read the ad- 
dress, the whole assemblage remained standing. The 
address recited the idea of honoring the General for his 
deeds, in the battle-field, and concluded by ex^Dressing 
heartfelt wishes for his welfare. 

In his reply the ex-President thanked them, as lie said 
he did all their countrymen, for their kindness and courtesy. 
He believed that it would be to the mutual interests of 
the two great English-speaking nations to maintain the 
friendly relations which now existed. England and Amer- 
ica must lead in commerce and civilization. He also 
expressed his gratification at the settlement of the Alabama 
claims which had been referred to ; but he carefully avoided 
any allusion to politics. 

The reception over, the party started at once for the 
harbor to the pier where the steamer Victoria was waiting 
to convey them to Ostend, Belgium. The American flag 
was seen flying among the shipping in the harbor in honor 
of the town's guest. A great crowd had gathered again 
at the pier and cheered loudly as the Victoria left and 
passed out into the straits. General Grant bowing repeat- 
edly from the bridge of the steamer. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE PAETY EEACH BRUSSELS HONORS OF THE BELGIAN 

CAPITAL THE BANQUET AT PALMER-GARTEN RE- 
CEPTION IN THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN AT LUCERNE, 

SWITZERLAND AT BERNE GENEVA MER DE GLACE 

— ^BY THE ITALIAN LAKES ARRIVES AT COPEN- 
HAGEN BACK TO LONDON BOUND FOR EDINBURGH 

THE SILENT MAN TALKS AT THE SCOTTISH CAPI- 
TAL THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY SUBSEQUENT 

EVENTS AT THE HOME OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

General Grant and his companions reached Brussels, 
the capital of Belgium, at about six o'clock in the evening 
of the 6th of July, and at once proceeded to the Bellevue 
Hotel. No official reception was given them, as the Gen- 
eral desired to travel for a time incognito. 

Shortly after his arrival, however, an aide-de-camp of 
King Leopold visited the General, bearing from his royal 
master an invitation to dinner, and placed at the disposal 
of his visitor his aides and carriage of state. 

In the evening following his arrival, General Grant 
dined with Mr. Sandford, ex-Minister of the United 
States. Several Belgian functionaries occupied seats at 
the table. 

On the following day the ex-President and his suite 
visited the Hotel de Ville, where the Burgomaster did the 
honors of the Communal Palace. The General perused 
with much interest the details of the telegraph and water 
supply. 

On the 8th, General Grant was visited by King Leo- 
pold, which being entirely out of the usual course, is con- 




A CASTLE IN GERMANY. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 97 

sidered as being a great honor. Later in the day, General 
and Mrs. Grant paid a visit to the King and Queen. A 
gala dinner was given at the palace in the evening, and 
quite a distinguished company sat down to table. All 
the high officials of the State and the foreign Ministers 
were present. King Leopold took Mrs. Grant to dinner, 
and the ex-President had the honor of escorting the 
Queen. 

On the following morning all the foreign ministers in 
Brussels called upon the General. Throughout his stay 
in the Belgian capital, he was treated with the greatest 
distinction. 

At half-past nine o'clock, General Grant and his party 
left Brussels for Cologne. The King's aid-de-camp and 
members of the American Legation accompanied them to 
the railway station. 

After an agreeable journey, the travelers reached 
Colo-jne, where they were cordially received at the railway 
station by the American Consul, Vice-Consul and the Presi- 
dent of the Police. All the civil and military Governors of 
the city called upon the General by command of the 
Empress. The General visited several Churches and the 
Cathedral, and made an excursion over the Suspension 
Bridge to Deutz, returning by the bridge of boats. In 
the evening he was serenaded at the Hotel du Nord by a 
military band. 

On the 10th the party started up the Rhine, visiting 
Bingen, Coblentz and Wiesbaden, reaching Frankfort on 
the morning of the 12th. They were received by the 
American Consul General and a reception committee. 
The American residents hoisted flags from their houses in 
honor of the occasion. They were at once conducted to 
the Hotel de Russie where rooms had been secured for 
them. During the day the Reception Committee con- 



98 



GRANTS TOUR 



ducted General Grant through (the ancient palace of the 
Diet) and the Cathedral. In the evening a banquet was 
given in his honor at the Palmer-Garten. It was a 
splendid affair. The Burgomaster presided, and the ban- 
quet hall was beautifully illuminated and decorated. One 
hundred and twenty guests, including all the prominent 
officials of the town, the officers of the garrison and leading 
citizens were present. 





•BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 



' After the toasts of the Empress and President Hayes 
had been drunk and duly responded to, Henry Seligman, 
the banker, proposed the health of General Grant. Mr. 
Seli2;man, in giving the toast, made a few appropriate 
remarks, in the course of which he said that the General 
was universally honored and esteemed. 

General Grant in his reply thanked the City of Frank- 
fort for its confidence in the Union during the late civil 




SCENE IN SWITZERLAND. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 101 

war. He concluded by drinking to the welfare and pros- 
2)erity of the city. 

, At the conclusion of his short speech the General was 
given a magnificent ovation. The guests rose to their feet 
and cheered lustily, and the crowd outside, numbering 
six thousand peoj)le, caught up the cheer and were enthu- 
siastic in their demonstrations of welcome. After the 
conclusion of the banquet, a grand ball was given, at which 
the elite of the city was present. Jesse Grant opened 
the dance with an American lady. 

The following day was devoted to sight-seeing, and at 
evening a visit was paid to Homburg. 

On Saturday, the 14th, a grand reception was given 
at the Gesellschaftshaus of the Zoological Garden, the 
Chief Burgomaster presenting the guests. A grand con- 
cert was afterwards given, which was attended by several 
thousands of persons. Stassy's famous band and the 
musicians of the Thirteenth Hussars were engaged for the 
occasion. 

The next day General Grant and his party left Frank- 
fort for Lucerne, Switzerland. A brief stop was made at 
this point, and then they passed on to Interlaken. The 
scenery at this point is exceedingly beautiful, and General 
Grant made several excursions into the surrounding 
country for the purpose of beholding its splendor. 

On the 24th the party arrived at Berne, and on the 
following day were received by the President of the Swiss 
Confederation. On the 27th they proceeded to Geneva to 
attend the laying of the corner stone of a new American 
Protestant Church in that city. Large crowds were pre- 
sent and hundreds of American flags were displayed from 
the windows of citizens' houses. 

The authorities of the city, and also the English and 
American clergymen of Geneva, were present. Speeches 



102 GRANT'S TOUR 

complimentary to General Grant were made by several of 
the principal clergymen. 

General Grant said, in replying to the toast given to 
America, that the greatest honor he had received since 
landing in Europe was to be among Americans and in a 
republic, and in a city where so great a service has been 
rendered to the Americans by a Swiss citizen in settlement 
of a question which might have produced war, but which 
left no rancor on either side. 

On Monday, the 30th, General Grant was received by 
the President of the Cantonal Council of Geneva, and in- 
spected the Town Hall, where the Joint High Commission 
sat during the arbitration of the Alabama claims. The 
General expressed his gratification at the happy visit to a 
spot consecrated by the amicable settlement of difficulties 
between two powerful nations. He said he was especially 
glad that the adjustment of these international difficulties 
occurred in a republic. 

On Tuesday the General went to Chamouni. On his 
departure from Geneva, a salute of artillery was fired in 
his honor, and the city was illuminated. At Pierre Pointue, 
on Mont Blanc, a number of Swiss bands gave him a 
grand serenade, and on Wednesday he visited the Mer 
de Glace and Montanvent. 

The Mer de Glace, viewing it from the hut on the 
Montanvert, resembles a vast sea of crystal, that has been 
torn and rent into wild, fantastic shapes by the dread force 
of. an earthquake. Walls of ice, many feet in height, run 
transversely, which are broken by fissures of often appal- 
ling width. Prodigious blocks of granite, that have 
descended from the surrounding aiguilles, abound on the 
more level portions of the glacier. In many cases these 
blocks are said to weigh thousands of tons, but as the ice 
of the Her, in some places, is over a thousand feet in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 103 

thickness, there is no fear of their sinking out of sight. 
A late writer, in sj^eaking of these granite visitors, re- 
marked that they were moving, more or less, every year 
toward the lower part of the Mer, (the termination of 
which is called the Glacier de Bois,) by a gradual move- 
ment of the ice, but as the journey is a slow one, it will 
be centuries before they get down to the valley. 

The Mer de Glace seems to be the gorgeous result of 
three great glaciers, all discharging their frozen contents 
into one immense basin. The three are the Glacier du 
Lechand, from the Jorasses ; the Glacier du Tacul, whose 
long, unbroken surface seems to fall from the summit of 
Mont Blanc ; and the Glacier du Talefre, which is a suc- 
cession of beautiful white pyramids that descend from the 
sparkling heights around. The Tacul, from its line of descent 
and great breadth, is the most important of the three, and 
gives the others a supplemental appearance, when viewed 
apart. It is after they have completely united, however, 
that the grandeur may have fairly said to have begun. The 
point of union, from the mighty force of the oj)posite 
powers, each pressing against the other, causes a desolate 
display of confusion — an immense caldron of ice, in which 
huge masses of rock are split and scattered about like 
grains of coffee in a hand-mill. 

This extraordinary and imposing phenomenon is very 
justly considered one of the greatest curiosities, not only 
of the vale of Chamouni, but of Savoy. Its extent, its 
wondrous pinnacles and cokimns ; the junction of three 
mighty glaciers ; the lofty peaks, rising on all sides ; the 
granite cubes, on which human foot will, perhaps, never 
stand ; and the beauty of the surrounding aiguilles, (that 
of Yerte is 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, and 
7,000 above the 3Ier,) all combine to impart to it an inter- 
est of a wonderful nature. All others of the Alpine 



104 GRANT'S TOUR 

glaciers have a strong resemblance ; this ocean of ice 
stands alone in wonder and variety of conformation. 
There is a hackneyed phrase that has done good service in 
all spheres of literature, and to use it is almost vapid 

but "to acquire an idea of the Mer de Glace, it- 

must be seen." Description is tam^ and treacherous. A 
famous crevasse, known as Le Moulin, in which the water 
roars as if there was a Niagara Falls beneath, has been 
plumbed to the depth of three hundred feet. This dan- 
2;erous hole is located near where the three glaciers spoken 
of rush into coalition, and it serves to mark the bounda- 
ries of peril and passage. 



LAKE MAGGIORE. 



When General Grant left Geneva, he departed by way 
of Simplon for the north Italian lakes. A brief stay in 
this picturesque region, and he and' his party returned by 
way of Splugen Pass to Eagatz, at which latter point he 
met his brother-in-law, M. J. Cramer, American Minister 




A BRIDGE AND RAVINE IN THE SWISS MOUNTAINS. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 105 

to Denmark. A few days spent here, and he departed 
for Palanza, on Lake Maggiore, where he arrived Sunday, 
August 5th. A few days later he visited Bellagio, where 
a grand fete was given in his honor. Several American 
residents in E-ome sent congratulations to the ex-Presi- 
dent. The evening following his arrival he was serenaded 
at his hotel, after which a concert was given in his honor, 
followed by a display of fireworks. Addresses were made 
by the Mayor and an officer who had served under General 
Garibaldi. General Grant in his reply referred to the 
exceeding hospitality he had received, praised the general 
conduct of the people so far as he had seen them, expressed 
his delight at the grand and lovely scenes that had met 
his eye at every turn since he had crossed the Alps, and 
concluded by saying : — "There is one Italian whose hand 
I wish especially to shake, and that man is General Gari- 
baldi." This allusion was greeted with great applause. 

During his stay at Lake Maggiore, there was a grand 
round of festivities, and every one seemed determined that 
the General should enjoy himself. 

After visiting Lake Como and all the important points 
in Italy, General Grant and his party accompanied Dr. 
Cramen to his residence in Copenhagen. Having spent 
a few days with his sister, General Grant and suite depart- 
ed for Antwerp, where they took passage for London, where 
they arrived safely, and took apartments at the British 
Hotel. 

After enjoying several days' visit, General Grant and 
his party departed for Edinburgh. A special Pullman car 
was chartered for the purpose, and was placed in charge 
of Mr. Roberts, the Pullman agent in London. The party 
consisted of General and Mrs. Grant, Jesse P. Grant, 
General Badeau, Mr. W. F. Coolbaugh, the banker, of 
Chicago; Mr. H. A. Poberts, Jacques Hartog, the Gen- 



106 GRANTS TOUR 

eral's faithful courier, an excellent linguist, speaking eiglit 
different languages, and the correspondent of the New 
York Herald. From London to Edinburgh, the distance 
of four hundred miles, the scenery is exceedingly attractive. 
All through England, and in the south of Scotland, the 
country is a perfect garden, and not until one gets among 
the chilly hills, valleys, and crags of Northern Scotland 
es one feelthat he was getting into open country. 

All along the route of the Midland Kailway great 
enthusiasm vv^as manifested. The reception given to Gen- 
eral Grant as each station was reached was whole-souled 
and fully meant hospitality. At Carlisle (the dinner 
stopping place ) , at Galashiels, Melrose, Harwick and a 
number of smaller towns in Scotland there were exp>res- 





LAl^E eOMO. ITALY. 



sions of joy "End enthusiasm that remind one of the rail- 
road receptions General Grant gets at the towns of Illinois 
and Ohio. It seemed as though they knew him perfectly 
well, his face, his history, &c., for they recognized him 
everywhere, and demanded as much handshaking as could 
be done in the limited time the train had to stay. Then 



AROUND THE WORLD. 107 

the cheers and hurrahs always sounded in the distance 
above the whistle of the locomotive. 

At Carlisle a telegram was received by General Grant 
from the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering him the 
hospitalities of his home. On their way to the Scottish 
capital, Mrs. Grant was quite cheerful and talkative ; 
while the General was unusually so. Occasionally he would 
speak of affairs at home, and very frequently he spoke of 
the past and present aspect of American politics. 

At one time he was asked, "General, when do you 
expect to return to America?" 

" I shall stay in Europe a year or more. I have special 
reasons for so doing. I am a private citizen now, and I 
want nothing whatever to do with politics." 

"What is your object in staying away from home so 
long?" 

"Well, in the first place, when I went out of office I 
was worn down. Now I have thoroughly recuperated, am 
in excellent health, and enjoying myself immensely. I 
would like to see all Europe. But I propose to stay away 
till after the excitina; scenes that will surround the test of 
Mr. Hayes' policy, for the reason that if I w^ere at home 
I would- be charged with having a hand in every kind of 
political manoeuvring, whether I had or not, and I want 
to banish politics from my mind until everything settles." 

"I notice, as we pass stations, these people hurrah and 
shake hands with you the same as our peoj^le do at home." 

"Yes. I was under the impression that there was no 
such custom here ; but in England the habit is as strong 
as in America. I think handshaking a great nuisance, 
and it should be abolished. In 1865 it was awful with 
me ; I thought I could hardly survive the task. It not 
only makes the right arm sore, but it shocks the whole 
system, and unfits a man for writing or attending to other 



108 GRANT'S TOUR 

other duties. It demoralizes the entire nervous and mus- 
cular system. None but a strong man could go through 
so much of it as I did in 1865. The most laborious and 
injurious handshaking is where you stand on an elevation 
and reach down. A man cannot stand much of that." 

"Do you get seasick on these ocean trips from one place 
to another ?" 

"No, singularly enough, I do not. I have been a good 
deal at sea during my life, and generally got very seasick, 
but have not been troubled in these voyages. I say it is 
singular, because from the 4th of March till the 17th of 
May I dined formally with friends, every day lunched, 
and sometimes took two lunches the same day. I thought 
I was a good subject for seasickness, and expected the 
motion of the ship would turn me inside out. As a 
matter of fact, I was disappointed." 

The General, so talkative at times, is a very different 
man from the Grant in office who was so recently our 
President. He inquires very particularly of the best. in- 
formed peo]3le of the neighborhoods he visits into the 
most minute details of affairs connected with manufactures, 
crops, &c., and occasionally, as did Edmund Burke, when 
he travelled, he surprised the natives by pointing out 
historic spots that he had never seen before, but has learned 
of through books and localized maps, as the students of 
Grecian lore would point out the ruins of j^ublic buildings 
in the city of Athens. He can fully describe the scenes 
of his visits, and likes to do it, evidently with a view to 
extend his information through a friction of ideas upon 
the subjects under discussion or in doubt in his mind. 

Soon after their arrival in Edinburgh, the freedom of 
the city was presented to General Grant by Lord Provost 
Sir James Fanshaw, in Free Assembly Hall. It was a 
grand affair, not only in fact but in its significance. It 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



109 



was hearty and whole-souled. Everything of the grandeur 
that surrounded the scene was meant. It was rather 
amusing to note, however, that General Grant did not give 
them a chance to speak. Eighteen hundred people, the 
highest toned of Edinburgh, were there — no boys or girls, 
but the heads of families — with tickets of admission sent 
to them out of six thousand applications. The city digni- 
taries in robes, the soldiers in kilts, the insigna of office 
dotting the place, and the gravity of the ceremony re- 
minded one of the Queen's visit to the House of Lords. 
That speeches were, as we say, " Fired off," till, with a 
wave of the hand, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh deliv- 
ered the silver casket — big enough for a sarcophagus — to 




A FORTIFICATION NEAR EDINBURGH. 



the " Soldier, President, fellow Scot." Then came cheers, 
and the collision of applauding hands shook the Gothic 
structure from base to roof. 



IIQ GRANT'S TOUR 

In reply to the Lord Provost's speech, General Grant 
said : 

" I am so filled with emotion that I scarcely know how to 
thank you for the honor conferred upon me by making me a bur- 
gess of this ancient city of Edinburgh. I feel that it is a great 
compliment to me and to my country. Had I the proper eloquence 
I might dwell somewhat on the history of the great men you 
have produced, on the numerous citizens of this city and Scot- 
land that have gone to America, and the record they have made. 
"We are proud of Scotsmen as citizens of America. They make 
good citizens of our country, and they find it profitable to them- 
selves. I again thank you for the honor you have conferred 
upon me," 

He spoke just three-quarters of a minute. Then it 
was suddenly discovered that the ceremony of half an 
hour was finished, and a. dozen brawny Scots of the first 
families in the realm went home with a dozen written or 
thought out speeches unspoken. Said a disappointed Scot : 
— " He made no speech." " Nau, mon, but he kippit a 
deal 'o tliinkin'." Then came shaking of hands, and the 
General had to reach for them in every direction. One 
man — it was so funny, and the General was puzzling over 
the meaning afterwards — said : — " Gineral, i'm glod to see 
ye. I'm a Scotchman, but me fayther and mitlier are 
baith birried in America." He passed on. Several such 
strange ej^isodes occurred. 

The events which followed are thus described : — 
"Then, after seeing the sights, to the Tay Bridge Instead of 
crossing the Eiver Tay from Tayport to Broughty Ferry, the 
usual crossing, we took the steamer up the river toward the Tay 
Bridge. After proceeding a short distance we hauled alongside 
an immense old man-of-war, now used as a training ship for 
boys. Three hundred and fifty little fellows in white jackets, 
blue pantaloons and bare feet manned the yards and sides of the 
ship. A brass band composed of little urch.ns discoursed 
sweetly national anthems and opera music. The sight was most 



AROUND the' WORLD. Ill 

affecting, and General and Mrs. Grant were delighted at the 
invitation to go aboard, The regular drill was gone through, 
and the ship was inspected. This institution, known as the 
" Mars training ship " is a wonderful preventive of crime. It is 
a charity incorporated bj legislative act for the purpose of 
reclaiming little b )ys who are found running about the streets 
without visible means of support. The difference between this 
and the Reformatory is, that no lad can be sent to the latter 
institution unless he has been in prison ten days. The graduates 
of the Reformatory, therefore, are always looked upon as a sort 
of jailbirds. No boy can be taken on the training ship who has 
ever been convicted of theft or any crime. The philanthropists 
of Edinburgh and Dundee go about and pick up lads who are 
associates of thieves, or who beg, or who have no ordinary 
means of support, and after assurance that they are in a fair 
way to become criminals they are sent to the training ship. 
Here they are thoroughly instructed in the duties of a sailor and 
in the common branches of learning. The routine of the day 
is:— Six A M., make up beds, hymn and prayers, breakfast, 
clean decks, inspection ; nine A. M., prayers, after which one 
watch on deck to seamanship, the other below to school ; dinner 
at twelve. The same routine is observed in the afternoon — 
supper at half-past five, prayers and bed at half-past eight. The 
proper recesses for play are given during school hours. The 
boys, though trained to become sailors, are not required to ship 
for sea when they grow old enough. Many of them develop extra- 
ordinary talents in other directions and are left to choose other 
pursuits. Some of the boys taken to the ship prove too weak for 
the task. In that case they are seni ashore and taken back when- 
ever the doctor thinks they are able to go. None desert. They 
are so kindly treated on the ship, that when they are dressed up 
and allowed to go ashore on a visit, they return punctually at the 
end of the allotted time. They take great pride in their studies, 
and strive to excel in learning. The rigid discipline kindly ex- 
ercised is calculated to make them ambitious. In 1848 the com- 
mitment of boys below sixteen years of age to the Edinburgh pri- 
son was 745. Through the work of the ragged and industrial 
schools started in that year, both ashore and afloat, the number 



112' GRANT'S TOUR 

of boy criminals in Edinburgli has been reduced from 745 in 
1848, to 95 in 1877. The boy criminals aged between fourteen 
and sixteen were 552 in 1848. and 48 in 1876, and during those 
thirty years the population has largely increased. 

" From this showing, and the tact that this ship turns out 100 
good sailors, or well-disciplined young men, fit for other pursuits, 
each year, it is evident that the true panacea for embryo criminals 
,is to pick them up — little, ragged, ill-bred, and ready for any 
vice — ^^from the streets and make men of them. In this way social 
pests are made good sailors or citizens. What satisfaction, too, 
it must be to Mr. Thomas Knox and the other gentlemen connec- 
ted with the enterprise, to witness the fine results of their labors 
and charities. General Grant and Mrs. Grant were quite enthu- 
siastically interested in the matter, and expressed strong hopes 
that some such institutions would be inaugurated in the large 
cities of America. 

" From the training ship we embarked with the boy band aboard 
the tug, and went lo the Tay Bridge. Here the engineer for the 
contractors, Mr. A. Grothe, narrated in detail the principal points 
connected with the erection of the structure, and expressed great 
pleasure that General Grant should appear just as the bridge was 
finished completely enough to cross, and the rails were nearly all 
laid. The last supporting column had been set up the day be- 
fore. Here the General and party Avere handsomely entertained at 
lunch by the Tay bridge people. General Grant, being something 
of an educated engineer, desired to go out upon the bridge, so the 
whole party were put into a workingmen's car and taken across 
The Tay Bridge is the longest in the world. It is not as elabo- 
rate or expensive as the St. Louis bridge, only longer. It extends 
two miles over water, and a quarter of a mile over land. The 
object of its erection was to avoid the frequent and sometimes 
very severe storms encountered by passengers on the North Brit- 
ish Eailroad, as well as to lessen the running time and increase 
the capacity for traffic over the railroad. At present the running 
time is three, and sometimes as much as four and five hours be- 
tween Edinburgh and Dundee, thirty miles. The passengers are 
obliii^ed to change cars twice — once when they cross the Firth of 
Forth, and once when they cross the river Tay. These and the 



i 



AROUND THE WORLD. 113 

storms that beat in from the German Ocean are great inconve- 
niences and annoyances to the traveler. The Tay bridge will, 
in a few days, remove one great obstacle, and in five years the 
bridge in course of construction by the same railroad company 
will remove the other. The Tay bridge was commenced July 22, 
1871. It consists of 85 spans, varying in length from 67 to 245 
feet. Of the latter dimensions there are 13, which are 88 feet 
above high water. The rise and fall of tide varies from 12 to 17 
feet. The roadway of the bridge is 1 in 73 feet rise from the 
shore to the centre on the north, and 1 in 356 on the south side. 
The rapid decline on the Dundee side is necessitated by the low 
level of the undergrou' d station and tunnel there. On the 
larger spans the train will run on the bottom part of the girders, 
and the smaller the rails are laid on top. so that, while the line of 
rail is continuous and apparently on a level, the girders are re- 
versed in position in the centre. In appearance the bridge is light 
and graceful, and, viewed from a distance, it looks too light for its 
purpose, but when inspected closely, it is found firm enough fur 
any load that can be taken over it, even in the most violent gale. 
The foundation for the iron columns rests on rock or hard bottom 
at an average of 18 feet below the river bed, and they weigh hun- 
dreds of tons each. The bottoms of the columns are above high 
water mark in order that they may not feel the corrosive effects 
of the water. The columns are braced in every direction, so as 
to be lighter- than, but almost as strong as, solid iron. The 
method of sinking these bases and raising the columns is re- 
markable. Every piece of the bridge was made on shore. A 
portion of the bank on the south side was levelled and the heavy 
parts constructed on a concrete foundation. Barges were floated 
under a staging, the immense masses floated out — a single caisson 
weighing some two hundred pounds — and by the use of hy- 
draulic force, and taking advantage of the tides, the caissons were 
disconnected and allowed by their own weight to find the bot- 
tom. Sand pumps were then used, and the sand pumped out 
until the iron caisson, with its brick lining, of its own weight, ' 
rested upon the hard earth or rock. Then it was filled with 
concrete, which hardened and became firmer all the time. The 
iron caisson will corrode away, but will leave the brick and 



114 



GRANT'S TOUR 



concrete, which is intended for the entire support of the bridge, 
as hard and firm as ever. So all the different parts of the spans 
were laid and so the columns were raised. The rise and fall of 
the tide greatly facilitated the work, by giving the desired height 
to the barges from time to time. I would like to go into a full 
description, but oq account of space, will merely give you aa 
idea of its immensity. It cost ;^1, 500,000. It is not covered or 
ornamented at all. The engineer who designed it is Mr, Bouche ; 
engineers for the contractors who have been in charge of the 
work, Mr. A.Grothe; engineer, north end, Mr. Kees S.Jones; 
contractors, Messrs. Hopkins. Gilke & Co, Middleboro. 




FORTRESS AT DUNDEE. 

"It was the intention of General Grant to visit the jute 
and flax mills, marmalade factories and the public buildings of 
Dundee, but time forbade. A number of us, by invitation of 
Mr. H. Stewart Ehind, of David Martin & Co., visited the jute 
mills of Henry Walker & Sons (the Caldrum Mills) not the 
largest, but the most modern of all the jute mills of Dundee. 
There they told us to dojff our coats and put on juted dusters and 
slouch hats. The rattle of the machinery, the twirling of thou- 



AROUND THE WORLD. llO 

sands of spindles, and flying around of hundreds of girls and men 
in this immense establishment suggested an activity that did not 
very well agree with Mr. Walker's statement that Dundee, the 
jute centre of the world, was losing money in its manufacture, 
and that business is awfully dull with the millers. Some of these 
jute mills are as large if not larger than our cotton mills at 
Lowell and Fall River, Mass. They make various kinds of bag- 
ging, cloth for dusters (sold as linen dusters). In fact, jute fibre 
enters into nearly every species of mixed goods, even to the 
adulteration of silks, especially umbrella silks. It is one of the 
largest manufactures of Great Britain. 







A SCENE IN MELROSE. 



" General Grant especially enjoyed the attractions of Melrose 
and Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott, and upon his 
return to Edinburgh, had very much to say about it. He 
examined the various objects of interest at Abbotsford with 
great care." 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENEKAL GEANT VISITS GLASGOW AYR NEWCASTLE- 
UPON-TYNE DEMONSTRATION ON THE TOWN MOOR 

BANQUETING AT BIRMINGHAM A VISIT TO BRIGHTON 

EN ROUTE FOR PARIS INCIDENTS BY THE WAY 

A HEARTY WELCOME A CALL UPON MARSHAL MAC- 

MAHON AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW THE "FI- 

GARO's" REPORT. 

On the 13th of September, 1877, General Grant was 
honored with the freedom of the City of Glasgow. Reply- 
ing to the address of the Lord Provost he said he would 
ever remember the day, and when back in America would 
refer with pride to his visit to Glasgow. He was so much 
a citizen of Scotland that it would be a serious question 
where he would vote. He thanked the Lord Provost for 
his kind words, and the audience for its welcome. The 
parchment was contained in a gold casket. The ceremony 
was witnessed by a large crowd, and the General was en- 
thusiastically cheered. A banquet in his honor was given 
in the evening, but was of a private character. 

On the next day he was presented with the freedom of 
the burgh of Ayr. In returning thanks for so distin- 
guished an honor. General Grant expressed the pleasure 
it gave him to form so close a connection with the land 
and home of Burns. 

On Thursday, the 20th, General Grant and party visi- 
ted Newcastle-on-Tyne, where they were warmly welcomed, 
and became the guests of the Mayor. Next morning 
General and Mrs. Grant, accompanied by the Mayor of 
Newcastle, General Badeau, Mr. Fairchild, the United 

116 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



117 



States Consul at JSTewcastle and others, visited the Exchange 
and other places of interest in the city. Their route was 
marked by a great display of banners and by large crowds 
of spectators. 

In the Exchange General Grant received an address 
from, the Chamber of Commerce, and, replying, thanked 
the large and enthusiastic audience for its kind reception, 




SHIP-BUILDING ON THE CLYDE 



which was highly gratifying to him and the American 
people, who would accept it as a token of kind friendship 
between the two nations — he could not say two jDCople, for 
they were really one, having a common destin}^, which 
would be brilliant in pro25ortion to their friendship. He 



118 GRANTS TOUR 

referred to tlie honorable settlement of all differences be- 
tween England and America, and said tbe j ougbt not only 
keep peace witb each other but with all the world, and by 
theii* example stop the wars that are now devastating 
Europe. 

The speech was loudly cheered. General Grant and 
the corporation then jDroceeded down the Tyne in a steamer, 
which was saluted with guns from almost every factory on 
the banks, every available spot on which was'crowded with 
people. General Grant and party stood on the bridge of 
the steamer during the greater part of the voyage, bowing 
in response to repeated cheers. 

The steamer stoj)ped at Jarrow and Tynemouth, at 
both of which places the municipal authorities presented 
most cordial addresses. The ceremony was witnessed by 
large and enthusiastic crowds. General Grant made suit- 
able replies, of similar tenor to his uSTewcastle speech. At 
Tynemouth he said he had that day seen one hundred 
and fifty thousand people leave their homes and occupations 
to manifest friendship to America. The ex-President held 
a reception at Newcastle in the evening. 

On Saturday a visit was paid to the Elswick Ordnance 
Works, and addresses received. In the afternoon there 
was a great demonstration of the workmen of Northum- 
berland and Durham on the town moor of Newcastle. 
Twenty-two trades participated in the procession, which 
occupied twenty minutes passing a given point. The num- 
ber of spectators present was estimated at from forty to 
fifty thousand. The demonstration far surpassed any 
which had occuiTcd since the great jDolitical meetings of 
the Reform Agitation. Mr. Thomas Burt, member of 
Parliament for Morpeth, presented an eulogistic address 
to General Grant, who said he thanked the workingmen 
for their very welcome address and thought this recej)tion 
was the most honorable he could meet with. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 119 

Alluding to what Mr. Burt had said concerning the 
late civil war, General Grant declared he had always been 
an advocate of peace, but when war was declared he went 
to the war for the cause which he believed to be right and 
fought to his best ability to secure peace and safety to his 
nation. In regard to the relations between America and 
England, the General said that friendship now existed be- 
tween the two countries, which he fully believed was 
increasing, and which would, in common with industry 
and civilization, increase in the future. 

Mr. Fairchild, United States Consul at Liverpool, in a 
brief speech bore testimony to the gratification of the 
American j)eople at the reception of the ex-President in 
England. General Grant on his departure from the moor 
was enthusiastically cheered. 

On the same day the Mayor and Town Council of 
Gateshead, j^resented the ex-President with a congratula- 
tory address. General Grant expressed j^leasure at his 
enthusiastic reception in all the towns of the North of 
England, and said he was glad the good feeling between 
England and America was warmer to*day than it had ever 
been. 

A banquet was given in honor of Gieneral Grant in 
the evening, by the Mayor of Newcastle. In response to 
a toast to his health, the General said his reception in 
Newcastle exceeded anything he had expected, and had 
been the warmest and best he had had or could have had. 

On Wednesday evening, October 17th, General Grant 
was entertained at a banquet in Birmingham ; the Mayor 
presided. A letter was read from Hon. John Bright, re- 
gretting his inability to be present, but expressing confidence 
that so distinguished a visitor would receive such a recep- 
tion as would show him how much Birmingham was in 
sympathy with him and his country. 



120 GRANT'S TOUR 

According to ancient custom and the established 
usage, the health of the Queen was j)roposed and drunk ; 
after which the Mayor proposed that of the President of 
the United States as a potentate whom all should honor. 
After this had been duly acknowledged by the company, 
Mr. Chamberlain, M. P. for Birmingham, proposed the 
health of General Grant in a happy speech, complimentary 
to the honored guest and his countrymen. 

General Grant, in response, referring to the last speak- 
er's allusion to the prompt disbandment of the army 
after the civil war, said: — "We Americans claim so much 
personal independence and general intelligence, that I do 
not believe it possible for one man to assume any more 
authority than the constitution and laws give him." A^ 
to the remarks that had been made as to the benefits 
which would accrue to America by the establishment of 
free trade, the General said he had a kind of recollection 
that England herself had a protective tariff until her 
manufactures were established. American manufactures 
were rapidly progressing, and America was thus becoming 
a great free trade nation. 

When the laughter which these words i^rovoked had 
subsided, the General warmly thanked the company for 
the reception they had given him. 

A few days later General Grant paid a visit to Brighton, 
and was the guest of Commodore Ashbury, the well-known 
yachtman. After an interesting visit, he returned to Lon- 
don, and began preparation for his departure for the 
French capital. 

On the 24th of October, accompanied by his wife and 
son. General Grant left London for Paris. On the arrival 
of the General and party at the railway station in Charing 
Cross, to take the train for Folkestone, he was greeted by 
a large crowd of Americans and Englishmen, who gave 



AROUND THE WORLD, 



121 



him a hearty cheer as he stepped out of his carriage. Sir 
Edward Watkin, the Chairman of the Southeastern Kail- 
way Company, "was in attendance, and a special train was 
in waiting to convey the distinguished party. 




TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 

The large space in front of the hotel and station ex- 
tending through the gates in the direction of Trafalgar 
square was filled with vehicles and pedestrians. After 
considerable hand shaking in the waiting room and lively 
greetings on the platform Sir Edward Watkin and his 
guests boarded the train, which moved off precisely at ten 
o'clock. 

After a pleasant run of one hour and forty-five min- 
utes the train arrived at Folkstone. General Grant was 
met by the Mayor of the town, accompanied by members 
of the Common Cauncil. About two thousand of the in- 



122 GRANT'S TOUR 

habitants of the old Kentish town welcomed the ex-Presi- 
dent with loud cheers. This crowd lined the wharves and 
raised cheer after cheer as he descended from the train. 

The General at once went on board the special yacht 
Victoria, accompanied by the New York Herald corres- 
pondent, Sergeant Gazelee and one or two other officials, 
these being the only guests. As the trim looking yacht 
with the American flag flying at the fore, left the chalk 
cliffs of Old England, the General stood upon the bridge 
and waved his hat responsive to the cheers and adieux from 
the shore. 

The sea was calm, with only a gentle swell, and a fine 
summer yachting breeze prevailed. The General paced 
the deck, enjoying his cigar and studying the interesting 
points and scenery along the majestic cliffs on the south- 
eastern coast, where William the Conqueror landed and 
fought the battle of Hastings. On nearing the French 
coast he beheld the sunny hills and shores of the memor- 
able site of Napoleon's Boulogne camp, where the Austerlitz 
army so long prepared for the invasion of England. 

The Victoria arrived at the Boulogne wharf at 
about two o'clock. A large crowd of Frenchmen, who 
had been advised of the arrival of ihQ grand guerrier Amtr- 
icain, was in attendance and received the guests with a 
hearty greeting. On entering the special train the sub- 
Prefect of the Department met and was introduced to the 
General. In the name of the Marshal-President and of 
the Frencn people, he welcomedhim to the shores of France. 

The General expressed his warm acknowledgments, 
saying he had long cherished the wish to visit France, and 
he was delighted with the present opportunity. M. 
Hoguet-Grandsire, the Senator representing the Depart- 
ment of the Pas de Calais, also bade him welcome in a 
brief address, full of sympathy and kindly feeling. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 123 

A long conversation now ensued between General 
Grant and the Senator, the latter speaking at considerable 
length on the curious and interesting phases of French 
politics. General Grant listened attentively, but making 
no response beyond asking how the department had voted 
in the late elections. 

After a long delay, somewhat in contrast to the prompt- 
ness of the English railroads, the trains started for Paris. 
On the way the General studied closely the scenery of the 
lovely country along the route, noted the principal indus- 
trial sections and especially observed the wonderful agri- 
cultural resources of the country. 

General Grant spoke a great deal about the financial 
policy at home, declaring emphatically on the silver 
question, saying he was bitterly opposed to the demone- 
tization scheme, which was only another phase of repu- 
diation. He next talked about the war, the relations of 
the United States with Mexico, and St. Domingo. 

He said his reception in England had been unvarying 
in warmth, and as to the hospitality of the people there, 
nothing could be more kind, considerate and gracious. 
Everywhere he had experienced, both in ofiicial and pri- 
vate circles, courtesy and respect. 

At Amiens General Grant quietly paHook of a dish 
of consomme. As the train neared Paris, the moon rose, 
and the General curiously studied the prominent features 
of the great French capital. They reached the station at 
a quarter to eight o'clock. Generals Noyes and Torbert 
entered the car, accompanied by the Marquis d'Abzac, 
first aide-de-camp of the Marshal-President, the official 
whose duty it was to introduce ambassadors. 

In the name of the President of the French Republic 
the aide-de-camp tendered General Grant a cordial wel- 
come. In reply the General thanked the Marshal, saying 



124 GRANT'S TOUR 

he anticipated great pleasure and interest from his visit to 
France. Generals Noyes and Torbert greeted him warm- 
ly. The party had borne the journey splendidly, none of 
them showing the least fatigue. 

Among the Americans awaiting the arrival of General 
Grant at the station in the company of the Minister were 
General Meredith Kead, from Greece ; ex-Minister Part- 
ridge, Admiral Worden, the bankers Seligman, Winthrop 
and Dr. Johnson, Dr. Warren and the representatives of 
the leading New York journals. 

A richly carjDeted salon was prepared at the station for 
the reception of the distinguished party. The ladies of 
the party, conducted by General Torbert, passed through 
this salon on their way to the carriages. A splendid bou- 
quet was presented to Mrs. Grant by a French journalist 
on the way. General Grant followed, leaning on the arm 
of Minister Noyes. As soon as he appeared in the crowded 
salon several rounds of hearty cheers were given and a 
number of people were presented to him. 

The party then entered carriages, in company with 
General Noyes and the Marshal's aid-de-camp and intro- 
ducer of ambassadors. They drove to the Hotel Bristol, 
where a handsome suite of rooms had been engaged for 
them. After a quiet dinner General Grant smoked a cigar 
and retired early. 

In anticipation of this visit. Marshal McMahon had 
delayed appointing the time for a grand dinner at the 
Elysee. 

The morning of the 25th opened dismally. Kain fell 
in torrents, and there seemed no prospect of cessation. 
During the morning General Grant called upon his bank- 
ers, Messrs. Drexel, Harjes & Co., 31 Boulevard Hauss- 
mann. Upon his return a multitude of visitors, including 
diplomatists, ambassadors and Americans, began to arrive 



AROUND THE WORLD. 127 

and continued to come until noon. The most eminent 
men of France were among the callers. At two o'clock 
General Grant, Mrs. Grant and Jesse Grant, with Minister 
Noyes and the Secretary of Legation, drove to the Elysee 
through a pouring rain. President McMahon, the Duchess 
of Magenta and the Duke Decazes received the General 
most cordially. The Duchess did everything in her power 
to render the occasion agreeable. General Grant wore 
plain evening dress, calling upon the official head of the 
people simply as any American citizen, properly intro- 
duced, might. President McMahon said that he was 
truly glad to welcome so eminent a soldier and citizen to 
France. In brief, the ex-President of the United States 
replied that the opportunity of expressing to the Chief 
Magistrate of France, the friendly sentiments entertained 
throughout the length and breadth of America toward 
the French people was equally pleasing to him. The in- 
terview was entirely informal and exceedingly cordial. 
President McMahon extended and General Grant accepted 
an invitation to dine at the Elysee, on Thursday, when 
the party re-entered their carriage and reached the Hotel 
Bristol about three. 

At four o'clock the committee of resident Americans, 
composed of Consul General Torbet, Dr. T. W. Evans, 
bankers Seligman, Munroe and Winthroy, Dr. Johnson, 
Mr. John J. Pyan and the Pev. Dr. Hitchcock called to 
invite General Grant and family to a grand banquet in his 
honor by the American residents of Paris, upon any date 
that the General might see fit to appoint. General Grant 
named Thursday, November 6, thanking the committee 
for the honor conferred upon him by his own countrymen 
in a foreign land. Much agreeable conversation followed. 
In the evening General Grant accompanied by a personal 
friend took a long walk around the Tuileries, Palais Poyal, 
Place de la Concord, and the boulevards for two hours. 



128 GRANTS TOUR 

On tlie next day he visited the studio of Mr. Healy, 
the American artist, and gave a setting for a portrait. He 
afterwards strolled about Montmartre and climbed the hill, 
which affords a fine view of Paris, and the . General 
expressed his admiration of the magnificent scene. After 
enjoying himself for some hours, he returned to his hotel, 
and in the evening was honored by visits from several dis- 
tinguished persons. Among the visitors were the Comte 
de Paris, head of the Orleans family, and the Duchess of 
Magenta, wife of the Marshal-President of the Kepublic. 

Several representatives of the French press called 
upon him, but found him very reticent. He declined to 
express an opinion concerning the political situation in 
America, but stated that his first impression of France 
was, that it wore a prosperous, well-ordered and happy 
aspect. The Figaro gives the followiug report of the in- 
terview. Although somewhat lengthy, it is too good to 
be lost ; we, therefore, give it entire : — 

" The Ameri'mn general who had been the guest of Paris for 
the past two days, is generally considered the most taciturn man 
in the world. To him Count Von Moltke, whom the Germans 
call the Great Silent, is quite a talker, since they often get him 
into speeches of fifty or sixty lines, while the longest speech 
which Grant is ever remembered to have made was that pro- 
nounced the day after he was first nominated President of the 
United States. Here it is in all its simplicity. The General 
appeared upon the balcony of the hotel where he was staying. 
Below, in the street, more than ten thousand persons were 
awaiting a speech. Reluctantly removing the cigar he was smok- 
ing, and raising it slightly between the first and second fingers 
of his ri_'ht hand, he said: 'Gentlemen, I am very glad to see 
you.' Then he made a bow, as much as to say, I hope you will 
not expect anything more from me now. On another occasion 
he found the means of being even more concise. One of his 
soldier friends, who is said to be almost as reserved as himself 
was commissioned to present the General with an elegantly 



ARO UND THE WO R L D. 129 

engraved gold cup in the name of the soldiers who had served 
under him. The warrior was introduced into the Grant house- 
hold bearing the cup in question. He quietly placed the cup 
upon the sideboard, remarking, * That's the cup.' The President 
looked afit in a dreamy sort of a way, and after the lapse of a 
few seconds, replied, ' Thank you.' Then he ofi'ered his com- 
panion in arms a cigar. The two veterans sat down, and, facing 
each oiher, smoked away in silence, while the deputation of 
foldiers waited in vain outside for the speech which is usual on 
these occasions. 

" I was aware that the General was of this peculiar turn, and 
I was not a little exercised concerning the kind of interview I 
was to have in response to my application of Thursday night, 
which he consented to with the best grace imaginable. An 
amiable and intelligent American, Dr. Evans, who is known to 
the whole of Paris, had said to me, ' You are going to see Gen- 
eral Grant. He will certainly be glad to receive an editor of 
the Figaro^ but do not expect to make him talk. Wait,' said 
Evans, ' I will tell you the best means of opening his mouth. 
Search Paris through, if necessary, for two of the very best 
cigars to be had ; put them in your pocket, and when you find 
yourself in the presence of the General, and when he has shaken 
hands with you, according to the American custom, ^'■ou will 
draw the cigars from your pocket, and say, ' General, I know 
that you are a connoisseur of cigars ; permit me to offer you 
some of the best to be had in Paris.' The General will examine 
your cigars, and if he finds them of an absolutely superior 
quality, you will put him in a fine humor, his tongue will wag 
as if by enchantment upon everything, politics only excepted.' 
Unfortunately, I had not the time to carry out the very original 
plan which the imagination of Dr. Evans suggested, for I was 
informed that the General was ready to receive me immediately. 
I repaired at once to the Hotel Bristol, where the General occupied 
a magnificent suite of rooms on the first floor. The salon in 
which he received me is named after the Prince of Wales, 
because it is generally reserved for the heir apparent of England, 
who adores Paris, and, is well known, makes us numerous 
visits. This ofdcial designation is made by an enormous tapestry 



130 GRANT'S TOUR 

screen, on which is embroidered in large letters the modest Eng- 
lish royal motto, ^Honi soil qui mal y pense.^ 

" The General's courier, M. Jacques Hartog, a very pleasant and 
agreeable young man, introduced me. General Grant was sitting 
near the corner of the fireplace. Facing him, upon a large divan, 
sat Mrs. Grant and her son. The latter is a young man of twenty 
to twenty-five years, having almost as meditative and reflective an 
air as his father. He is, I am told, a great mathematician. The 
General arose and extended to me his hand. The physiognomy 
of the brave general, to whom I had the honor to be presented, 
was very curious to observe. I do not think, for example, that 
there is upon earth any being whatever who, under whatever 
circumstances, could flatter himself as having seen made upon 
this enigmatic figure, the shortest, the slightest, the most momen- 
tary impression. We Frenchmen possess, in order to characterize 
this kind of figure, a word which I would not use if I thought it 
would constitute a want of respect ; this is ^ete de hois — wooden 
head. Ulysses Grant possesses this peculiarity in the highest de- 
gree, that which, after all, is perhaps a quality and a resource for 
a soldier or a statesman. I know, through a friend of the General 
that this phenomenal imperturbability is never relaxed, even for 
a second, even in circumstances the most grave and perilous. 
This friend has seen him under fire, mounted on his grizzly 
mare, as celebrated in America as the white horse of Napoleon 
has been in France, and there was always the same figure, im- 
passible, indifferent. During a series of battles, which lasted for 
ten or twelve days, and which cost the Federals nearlj^ sixty thou- 
sand men. Grant slept at night, after having smoked an enormous 
number of cigars, for eight hours at a time, as peaceably as an in- 
fant, rose in the morning and dressed, and then began to give out 
his orders in the same way a ^ty merchant arranges his bills. 
Is ever have circumstances more grave, never has heavier respon- 
sibility rested upon a man than General Grant has experienced, 
yet a word of anxiety, trouble or discouragement was never 
known to escape him. They called Wellington the Iron Duke. 
The Americans might well have entitled Ulysses S. Grant the 
Steel General, As I saw him at the Ho'^el Bristol, and much as he 
must have been fatigued from his journey, General Grant had the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 131 

appearance of a man still very vigorous. His shoulders are 
massive and broad, and his body has a marked tendency to em- 
honpoint. The General, moreover, gives a very good account of 
himself, for he said laughingly to a friend yesterday that he con- 
gratulated himself on not having changed for ten years : — ' Yes, 
and I have gained forty-five pounds in weight.' His beard, which 
is closely cropped, has commenced to turn gray. His hair is per- 
fectly black. His complexion, slightly bronzed, gives the Gen- 
eral a Germanic aspect, althougiiL he comes of pure American 
stock. 

"The conversation commenced in English, about Paris, which 
the General now visits for the first time in his life. I inquired 
what his first impression was. He replied to me, with good sense 
and precision, to the effect that he was unable to form an opinion, 
as he had ridden from the railroad depot {(jare) to the hotel in a 
covered carriage, and was unable to see anything but the cushions 
in the vehicle. 

" ' But, General, have you not paid a visit to Marshal McMa- 
hon ? How did you find our President V 

" ' We ^were unable to comprehend each other,' 

" 'How was that ?" I said, with astonishment. 

" 'Simple enough. I didn't understand a word of French; the 
the Marshal doesn't know a word of English. He bowed to me • 
I bowed to him. He extended his hand to me ; I extended mine 
to him. Then all was over.' 

'"Then the interview only lasted a minute V 

"'No. I remained a few minutes to speak with Mme. Mc- 
Mahon, and I was delighted, for she speaks English admirably. 
I was, indeed, astonished that a French lady should speak it so 
beautifully. The Marshal has a fine mien, and has the air of an 
honest man.' 

" As it seemed to me the General was in a good humor, and 
in a vein for talking, I risked, without great hopes of success, 
however, a question on politics, as follows : ' General, as you 
have been, like our Marshal, President of a republic, and you 
have been in an analagous situation to his — that is to say, at 
variance with the legislative power, I am sure the public would 
be curious to know your opinion upon the present crisis.' 



132 GRANT'S TOUR 

" The General, at this question, which I confess having 
put with temeriij, had what I will call a 'time' of silence. He 
did not express the slightest astonishment, and, in the same tone 
as before, looking continually at the carpet, said : ' I am not a 
Frenchman, I am an American ; and, as the ocean separates us, I 
have not studied the question in any such way that I should dare 
to give my opinion on it.' 

" I then recalled to mind what had been told me of the 
manner in which Grant acted -with reporters in America when 
he was in power. He received them whenever they wished; 
then, when they broached politics, he drew cigars from his 
pocket, offering one to his interlocutor, and then commenced to 
smoke in silence. To get a word out of him after this there was 
but (me means left ; speak to him about his horses. I therefore 
(somewhat changing the tactics of the American) quitted the 
domain of politics by asking the General if he proposed staying 
long in Paris. 

"'If this horrible rain continues,' said he, 'I shall leave 
forthwith. If not I shall remain here during the whole of the 
month of November.' 

" Another silence. Then he continued : * I have always been 
very curious to know France, and Paris especially. The impres- 
sion I had coming from Bologne was that it was a fine country, 
well cultivated and had a happy air.' 

" Another silence. 

" 'The railroads of France are much better than ours. The 
service is made with more precaution, and the roads are well 
built.' Then the General recounted some details concerning his 
journeys in England, and upon the euthusiastic and sympathetic 
reception he had received. He seemed to have great pleasure 
in recalling these facts. I do not think it of sufficient interest 
to reproduce these remarks for the French public. ' After hav- 
ing seen Paris,' said he, * I shall go to Spain; Italy and Egypt, 
where I hope to pass the greater part of the winter.' 

" The conversation lasted about fifteen minutes, and com- 
prised the pauses of this great taciturn. I thought that this 
was a great deal, and that already I had occasioned the General 
to expend a great many words, so I took my leave, thanking 



AROUND THE WORLD. . 133 

him for the condescension with which he entertained me. To 
sum up, I carried awaj an impression that he had an extremely 
original personality, a force, concentration and reserve, and that 
notwithstanding the absolute lack of expansion, he i^ very 
sympathetic. He is a man whom it is necessary to see actually 
at work in his own way, and then he is highly interesting. 

" After the foregoing remarks made about the character of 
General Grant, I feel that I am completely within the limits of 
vraisemhlance in desiring to get up a descriptive word on 
him — I use the word in a French sense — houlevardier. I have 
the idea from an American worthy of belief, who has known 
General Grant for a long time. It was while Grant was Presi- 
dent. A fellow forced himself into the President's presence for 
several months at intervals, and asked him for some kind of 
employment. Somewhat angered one day Grant said to him: 
'Learn Spanish and come see me this day six months.' The 
solicitor was somewhat taken aback, but he thought that the 
President intended to give him a diplomatic mission in Spain. 
He returned in about six months, proud and beaming. ' I know 
Spanish,' said he to Grant, ' Ah !' replied the President, ' go 
and read Don Quixote in the original. It is said to be much more 
interesting than the translation.' 

" But how to make a word to represent Grant — a word for 
Grant! President Lincoln often indulged in sallies of wit. It 
was during the war of secession. General Grant had already 
won several victories. His enemies sought to injure him in the 
estimation of Lincoln, pretending that he drank too much 
whisky, which, however, was not true, for he drank only as most 
of his companions did. 

" ' Can you give me the address of the grocer who furnishes 
it?' said Lincoln one day, disgusted with the scandal. 

" ' Why ?' asked the other.* 

" ' I should like to know it, in order to give it to the other- 
generals,' replied Lincoln. 

" This journey to Paris that Grant is now undertaking has been 
a dream long nourished by him. At the time of the war of se- 
cession, during which he had under his orders nearly 200,000 
men, he loved to spend the evening in his tent, speaking of Paris 



134 



GRANTS TOUR 



to a countryman of his who had lived among us for a long period. 
He would order his negro to make a large fire, take a cigar, and 
crossing his legs, which has become habitual, he listened atten- 
tively to the stories his friend told of Paris, her fetes, her salons, 
her balls, her women, her theatres, and all the little details of Pa- 
risian existence, as much upon the distractions of the boulevard 
as that which passed at the Court of Napoleon III. After loDg 
hours thus passed, the General, who, it must be understood, had 
not breathed a word, would say, with a sigh : * For the present 
I have no money ; if I ever have any I shall go to Paris.' Is it 
not strange that this attraction should be felt thousands of miles 
away by this hardy warrior, who is, moreover, one of the most 
anti-European men you can imagine ?" 




CHAPTEE VIII. 

GEAND BANQUET BY THE UNITED STATES MINISTEK 

WHO WEEE THERE THE MENU THE RECEPTION 

MCMAHON's dinner THE GRAVE OF THIERS THE 

BANQUET OF THE AMERICAN RESIDENTS A GRAND 

AFFAIR THE TOASTS BIOGRAPHY IN A NUTSHELL 

THE general's REPLY AT THE ITALIAN OPERA 

THE GAULOIS SPEAKS A VISIT TO PRINCE ORLOFF 

MRS. MAKAy's dinner A VISIT TO SEVRES AT 

LYONS ON BOARD THE V AND ALIA EN ROUTE FOR 

NAPLES. 

Among tlie many fetes given in honor of General and 
Mrs. Grant, in Paris, tlie most brilliant was tlie official 
banquet and reception given tbem by the United States 
minister Noyes. The banquet was a superb effort of 
Parisian culinary skill, which can work such gastronomic 
wonders when given carte blanche, and when there is a 
cellar of Monte Christo to draw upon. It was regretted 
on every hand that Marshal McMahon was not present at 
dinner. He had been invited but declined on the ground 
of having recently refused to be present at several diplo- 
matic dinners, particularly that given by the Russian 
Ambassador. He promised, however, to attend the recep- 
tion in the evening. 

Twenty-two guests were invited, so that with the host 
and hostess, there were twenty-four at the table. The 
guests were : General and Mrs. Grant ; J.esse R. Grant ; 
General Berthut, Minister of War, and wife ; M. Caillaux, 
Minister of Finance ; M. Brunet, Minister of Public In- 
struction ; ]M. Voisin, Prefect of Police, and wife ; Due 

135 



136 GRANTS TOUR 

Decazes, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; M. Paris, Minister 
of Public Works; General Marquis d'Abzac, Aide-cle- 
Camp of Marshal McMahon ; Due de Broglie, President 
of the Council and Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Jus- 
tice ; M. Ferdinand Duval, Prefect of the Seine ; M. de 
Fourton, Minister of the Interior ; Yiscounte de Meaux, 
Minister of Commerce ; M. Mollard, Introducer of 
Ambassadors ; Lieutenant de la Panouse, Staff Officer of 
Marshal McMahon ; M. Vignaux, Assistant Secretary of 
the Legation; Miss Lincoln, Miss Stevens, and the 
Duchesse Decazes. 

The following is the menu : — 



MENU. 

POTAGES. 

Tortue a I'Anglaise. Consomm^ a la S6vign6. 

HORS D'cEUVEES. 

Bouch^es Agnes Sorel. 

EELE^'E. 

Turbot, sauce crgme, et crevettes. 

ENTEEES 

Selles de chevreuil d, la St Hubert. 

Cotelettes de volailles a la Maintenon. 

Caisses d' ortolans h. la Florentine. 

Filets de soles a la rayigote. 

PUNCH. 

Bose. 

EOTIS. 

Faisans truffes. Cailles sur croustades. 

ENTREMETS. 

Pdt6 de foie gras de Strasbourg. Salade parisienne. Crepes k la Bordelaise. 

Timbales d'ananas, Pompadour. Gateaux noisettes. 

DESSERT. 
VINS. 

Vieux Madfere. Chateau d'Yquem, ergme 1864. Chateau Lafltte, 1864. 

Chateau Margaux, 1869. Johannisberg, Mesternich's 1857. 

Clos Vougeot, 1858. Eomance Conti, 1865. Champagne Dry Monopole, 1870. 

Amontillado. Vieux Port, vintage 1858. Cognac, 1844. 

Kirscliwasser, Anisette. Chartreuse. Curajoa. 



The banquet passed off without any special incident 
worthy of note.. That charming flow of polite and witty 
or at least pleasantly pointed conversation which character- 
izes French dinners kept time to the melody of the repast 
itself. There was no English reserve to thaw. The 



AROUND THE WORLD. 137 

French and Americans s'entendent without difficulty, and 
hence they make the best neighbors around the snowy 
damask. 

At about nine o'clock the general reception began. A 
heavy rain had been falling all the afternoon and evening, 
the meteoric visitation being a remnant of the storm which 
had been previously predicted. It of course had no deter- 
rent effect on the invited, although it gave a dreariness to 
the streets without, which, out of the selfishness of human 
nature, imparted an additional air of warmth to the spa- 
cious and splendid apartments of General Noyes. It was 
not long before the salons were filled with guests. Out in 
the rain a long line of carriages extended far up the. 
Avenue Josephine toward the Arc de Triomphe. The 
police arrangements were, as usual in Paris, and above all 
where the Prefect dines and the Marshal-President visits, 
perfect. The guests were received by General Grant, 
Mrs. Grant and their son. General and Mrs. Noyes, Con- 
sul General Torbert and Secretary Vignaux making the 
introductions. 

Mrs. Grant was dressed in a costume of heavy white 
satin, Mrs. Noyes appearing in a similar dress. General 
Grant and Minister Noyes wore plain evening dress, Gen- 
eral Torbert, however, appearing in the uniform of a 
major general. The rooms as the guests arrived became 
perfect gardens of lively colors. Brilliant iiniforms, diplo- 
matic orders and decorations mingling with the sheen of 
silks and satins made up a wonderful picture. 

Marshal McMahon arrived early. He wore a plain 
evening dress with the ribbon of the Legion and a breast 
covered with orders. He seemed in excellent health and 
spirits, not showing the slightest trace of the long parlia- 
mentary struggle he has been engaged in. 

The Marshal stood for nearly an hour beside General 



138 GRANT'S TOUR 

Grant, occasionally joining in the conversation and re- 
ceiving the congratulations of the members of the diplomatic 
corps and the numerous brilliantly uniformed officials who 
thronged the apartments. As the two renowned soldiers 
stood side by side, one could not help contrasting them. 
Marshal McMahon's ruddy, honest Celtic face, white mus- 
tache and white hair recalled the poet's figure of " a rose 
in snow." Grant, calm, massive and reserved, wore the 
same imperturbable face so well-known at home. McMa- 
hon seemed all nerve and restlessness ; Grant looked all 
patience and repose. The contrast in person was indeed 
remarkable, although each had come to the Presidency of 
a powerful republic over the same red road. The passion 
of arms commanding two great nations, had led each to 
choose its foremost soldier as Executive head. One has 
laid down his power at the feet of the people who conferred 
it. There is scarcelj a doubt that the other will do the 
same when the appointed day arrives. Meantime two 
great warlike careers touched in friendship in the parlors 
of General Noyes. 

The reception drew together the largest assembly of 
the American colony known in years, and they compared 
favorably with the many European nations represented 
there. 

The refreshment tables were exquisitely arranged and 
well patronized, which is just the manner in which such a 
host as General Noyes would desire to have his sumptuous 
hospitality appreciated. 

The acerbity of French politics at that time was shown 
by the fact that, although general invitations were given 
in the columns of the newspapers and no cards were issued, 
not one of the leading members of the republican party 
or press was present. This was owing to the fact of the 
promised presence of the Cabinet being known. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 141 

On the next day lie visited tlie Palais d'Industrie and 
the works where the magnificent statue of " Liberty " for 
for the New York harbor is being constructed. He was 
received there by the Marquis de Hochambeau, the Mar- 
quis de Lafayette, M. Laboulaye, and other friends of 
America. The sculptor, M. Bartholdi, presented him 
with a miniature model of the statue. The General 
several times expressed his satisfaction for the work. In 
the evening he attended the opera, where he was well 
received by the audience, and treated with great respect 
by the officials. 

Oh Thursday, November 1st, President McMahon 
gave a grand dinner to General Grant at the Elysee. 
Among the distinguished personages present were the 
Dukes de Brogiie and Decazes, General Berthaut, Vis- 
count de Meaux, MM. Fourtou, Caillaux and Brunet, and 
Admiral Gicquel des Touches, all members of the Cabi- 
net, some of them with their ladies ; the Marquis d'Al- 
zac, M. Mollard, and members of the Marshal's militarv 
household ; Mrs. Grant, Mr. Noyes, the American Min- 
ister, and lady ; Consul-General Torbert and lady, and 
Mrs. Sickles. General Grant sat on the right of Mme. 
McMahon, and the Duke de Brogiie on her left. Mrs. 
Grant sat on the right of President McMahon, and Mr. 
Noyes was seated between Mrs. Sickles and Mrs. Torbert. 
The banquet was a very brilliant and animated affair. It 
began at half-past seven and terminated at nine o'clock. 
After dinner. General Grant and President McMahon 
had a long conversation in the smoking-room, M. Vign- 
aud, of the American Legation, acting as interpreter. 
The Marshal invited General Grant to breakfast with 
him as a friend, and also to witness some of the sittings of 
the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. The General 
accepted the invitation, and expressed himself highly 
pleased with the recej)tion. 



142 GRANT'S TOUR 

During tlie day, the General visited Mme. Thiers, and 
presented her with a crown of flowers for her husband's 
grave. A visit was also made to the Palais du Corps 
Legislatif. Two days later he visited the Parisian ceme- 
teries and spent some time in examining them: He was 
greatly struck with the exquisite taste displayed in deco- 
rating the graves, and as the day was the "Jour des 
Mortes," he had an opportunity of seeing the Parisians 
in one of their best moods. On that day business and 
politics/ are forgotten, and thousands of citizens, clad in 
holiday attire, throng the cemeteries to strew flowers on 
the graves of departed relatives and friends. The heart 
of many a rabid foe of "clericalism," too, is softened on 
that day, and heartfelt prayers are offered for the souls of 
the "faithful" dead ones. 

On the evening of November 6th, a banquet was given 
in honor of General Grant by the American residents of 
Paris. It was a splendid affair. It began at eight 
o'clock, and the guests, to the number of three hundred 
and fifty, filled seven tables. 

At a semicircular table, raised above the others, were 
ex-President Grant, Minister Noyes, Consul-General 
Torbert, M. Vignaud, of the American Legation; Jesse 
Grant, son of the General ; the Marquis de Rochambeau, 
M. de Lafayette, and Mesdames Grant, Nayes, Stevens, 
Lincoln and Sickles. The other guests occupied six 
parallel tables, which were presided over by members of 
the Banquet Committee, viz. : Dr. Johnson, Mr. J. J. 
Ryan, Colonel Evelyn, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, Mr. Van- 
burghen and Mr. Woods. MM. Laboulaye and Cernuschi 
were among the French guests present. 

The banqueting hall was splendidly decorated and 
illuminated. The Franco- American Union contributed a 
portrait of General Grant, which, adorned with flags, was 



AROUND THE WORLD. 143 

hung over tlie principal table. A band stationed in tbe 
gallery played at intervals, and vocal music was given by 
a cborus furnished by the director of the Italian Opera. 
General Grant, Minister Noyes and General Torbet were 
in full uniform. 

Mr. Noyes, as chairman, proposed the following 
toasts : — 

" The President of the United States," which was 
responded to by music only. 

" The President of the French Republic," to which a 
similar response was made. 

These were followed by the toast of the evening, " Our 
Guest, General Grant," which was proposed by the Chair- 
man in the following speech : — 

"Ladies and Gentlemen — It has generally happened, ac- 
cording to the world's history, that when a great public crisis has 
occurred, such as a revolution for independence or a struggle 
for national existence, some man has been found specially fitted 
for and equal to the emergency. He appears suddenly from 
unexpected quarters, and is not always selected from the arena 
of politics or from among the most prominent of his countrymen. 
He assumes at the proper time leadership and control, simply 
because he was born for it and seems to have waited for the op- 
portunity and the necessity. 

" When the war of secession was inaugurated in America, 
in 1861, a quiet and silent man, who had received a military edu- 
cation, was pursuing an avocation in civil life in a small town 
in Illinois. As soon as the first hostile guns opened upon Fort 
Sumter he ofi;'ered his services to his country and was appointed 
colonel of a regiment of volunteers. It was then believed that 
the war would be of short duration and limited in extent, but 
the North had underrated the spirit and perhaps the courage and 
endurance of the rebellious section. Early reverses and doubt- 
ful contests that were either defeats or drawn battles soon made 
it apparent that all the energies and resources of the government 
would be taxed to the uttermost. The theatre of war rapidly 
extended until it stretched westward a thousand miles from the 



144 GRANT'S TOUR 

sea, across great rivers and mountain ranges. Immense armies 
were assembled in the South, composed of brave and chivalrio 
soldiers and commanded by able and accomplished leaders. 
There were serious political troubles and divided sympathies 
among the people of the North, but both sides nerved themselves 
for the bloody and terrible struggle which lasted four years and 
resulted in the success of the national forces. 

" Meantime our Illinois colonel had risen in rank until there 
was no grade sufficient for his recognition and reward, and two 
new ones were successively created. This silent man had shaken 
the continent with the thunder of his artillery and the tramp of 
his victorious columns. At the close of the war he was General- 
in-Chief, commanding all the armies of the Eepublic, which 
carried upon their muster rolls 1,100,000 men. The Union was 
preserved and its flag everywhere respected. After the close of 
the war he was twice called by a grateful nation to the highest 
office in the gift of 45,000,000 people. 

"He administered the government with moderation, gen- 
erosity, wisdom and success. The civil power was confronted 
by many complicated and difficult questions. He solved them 
with rare patriotism aod intelligence, and his place in history as 
a civil magistrate will be among the foremost. After sixteen 
years of such labor as few men could endure; after such success 
in war and peace as few men ever attain, he seeks recreation in 
many lands and an opportunity to compare the institutions of 
his own country with the civilization and forms of government 
of the Old World. It is our happy privilege to-night to 
welcome the great soldier and statesman to this, the Queen City 
of the world, and to wish for him and his family health and 
happiness. Without detaining you longer, I propose the health 
of the distinguished guest of the evening, General Grant, 
ex-President of the United States." 

The delivery of General Noyes' speech was frequently 
interrupted by enthusiastic applause. 

General Grant, on rising to reply, was received with 
prolonged cheering. He said : — 

"Ladies and Gentlemen — After your flattering reception 
and the compliments of Governor Noyes, T am embarrassed to 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 145 

thank you as I should wish. During the five and a half months 
I have been in Europe my reception has been very gratifying, 
not only to me, but also, above all, to my country and country- 
men, who were honored by it, I thank the American colony of 
Paris. I hope its members will enjoy their visit here as I am 
doing and hope to do for some weeks yet. I hope when you re- 
turn hoijie you will find you realized the benefits predicted by 
our Minister." 

Loud and enthusiastic applause followed the General's 
speech. 

The toast, "Oul* Country," succeeded, and was 
responded to by Mr. Kantoul. 

M. de Lafayette replied to the toast of "France." He 
said France duly appreciated the great leader and great 
citizen who had honored her by his visit. M. de Lafay- 
ette remarked that General Grant quitted power solely to 
bow before the laws of his country. He thanked him for 
visiting France, because he was a great example for her, 
and because France gained from close inspection. In 
conclusion, he alluded to the Kevolutionary war, and 
expressed an ardent wish that the French and American 
republics should never be separated, but form an indisso- 
luble union for the welfare, liberty and independence of 
peoples. 

The Marquis of Rochambeau also spoke in eulogy of 
General Grant. 

The toast, "The Army and the Navy," was responded 
to by tl'io singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by the 
Italian chorus. 

Mr. Ifoyes finally proposed "The Ladies," and General 
Torbert offered "The Health of the United States Min- 
ister. Mr. Noyes replied briefly, and the company then 
adjourned to the drawing-room. Here a scene of marvel- 
ous beauty was opened to the eye. A splendid painting 
by Moran, the distinguished Philadelj)hia artist, repre- 



146 GRANTS TOUR 

renting Bartlioldi's statue of Liberty, which is to be 
placed in New York harbor, attracted general attention, 
and was pronounced by all to be a really fine picture. 
The only other decorations being the French and Ameri- 
can flags, this picture tended to enliven the scene. Grant 
wore the famous Galena swords, having the names of all 
his battles, from Palo Alto to Chattanooga, the hilt 
incrusted with diamonds. 

On the evening of the 8th, a reception was given 
General Grant at the Italian Opera. The State box was 
occupied by the visitors. The fagade was decorated by 
American escutcheons and flags, while the passage where 
the President enters was made beautiful by a collection of 
American flowers and plants. 

General Grant was received there by M. Escudier, the 
Director of the Opera, with all the honors. On the 
General's entrance to the box, the orchestra struck up 
"Hail Columbia," and the crowded and brilliant audience 
rose to their feet. Generals Noyes and Torbet, and their 
wives, occupied separate boxes. 

Between the acts, General Grant smoked a cigar, and 
afterward promenaded in the foyer, accompanied by M. 
Escudier. The crowds regarded him with interest, but 
were too well-bred to follow him or impede his move- 
ments in any way. The famous Tamberlik took the part 
of Manrico in the opera of "Trovatore." 

Between the acts of the opera various American 
national airs were played, which were much applauded 
and encored. General Grant attentively listened to the 
whole performance. Upon his leaving, the orchestra 
repeated "Hail Columbia." The crowd waited for Gen- 
eral Grant at the door, and respectfully saluted him. 
The General bowed, and appeared to be pleased. 

The visit to the Palace of Fontainebleau was an occa- 
sion of great interest. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 149 

During his stay in Paris, General Grant was often 
mucli amused at some of tlie queer things which he found 
in the newspapers. One morning he called at the office 
of the New Yorh Herald, 61 Avenue de 1' Opera, for the 
purpose of reading American and French papers. There 
he found a late issue of the Gaulois, which contained an 
article filled with personal abuse of himself, and expressed 
a surprise that the French people should show him so 
much attention. It even declared that the American 
women were dressed like bar-maids, and the men in a 
manner wholly unbecoming to gentlemen. General 
Grant laughed heartily over both the assaults upon him- 
self and upon the character of the American people. 

On the 15th, he visited the tomb of Thiers, and 
placed upon it a beautiful wreath of immortelles. On the 
19th he visited, in company with his wife, the chocolate 
manufactory of M. Menier, the radical republican deputy 
from the arrondissement of Meaux, at Noisiel. They 
were entertained with a splendid lunch at the chateau. 
On the 21st, he called upon Prince Orloff, the Russian 
ambassador, and passed three-quarters of an hour in con- 
versation with him, the Prince doing the greater part of 
the talking. 

Later in the day he attended a fete, consisting of 
dinner and ball, given by Mrs. Makay, wife of Bonanza 
Makay, at her splendid mansion in Rue Tilsit. It was 
the great sensational event of the season, and for the time 
being overshadowed in importance, as far as the American 
colony, and fashionable society were concerned, the existing 
political crisis. 

The house where the affair took place cost 1,500,000 
francs, and the furniture 500,000 francs. It looks out 
upon the Place d'Etoile, and is a splendid residence. The 
garden was brilliantly illuminated and decorated with 



150 GRANTS TOUR 

national flags, and with emblems set in thousands of gas 
jets. The orchestra, consisting of thirty-six musicians, 
was stationed on a pavilion built out from the house in 
front of the Kue Tilsit. A dozen footmen, in liveries of 
crimson and gold, lined the entrance and stairway. The 
carriages occupied the causeway in front. The vestibule, 
staircase and passageways were profusely decorated with 
flags and beautiful flowers. The rooms were magnificent. 
Everything that money could supply and elegant taste 
select was there to add to the beauty and impressiveness 
of the scene. 

There were covers for twenty-four, and the guests were 
General Grant and family, and the members of the 
American Legation and Consulate and their families. 
There were no unoflicial Americans present at the dinner. 
The menu was inscribed on small silver tablettes, as in the 
case of the famous dinner to Senator Sharon at San 
Francisco. 

After the dinner a grand reception and ball took place, 
at which three hundred guests were present. Among 
the guests were the Marquis de Lafayette, MM. de Roch- 
ambeau and de Bois-Thierry, the Due de Rivoli, the Due 
and Duchesse de Bojano, the Due and Mile. Ribon de 
Trohen, Comtes de Beon, Serurrier, de Montferraut, de 
Divonns and Excelmans, the Baronne Delort de Gleon, 
Barons Houbeyran and de Reinach, and Vicomtes de 
Villestrux and Marchand, the Due Decazes, Senator 
Laboulaye, MM. Henri Martin and Leon Say, Mme. 
Guizot, Mr. and Mrs. Seligman, and M. Cernuschi. 

The American colony was largely represented, and 
the number of beautiful women was very remarkable. 
The ladies' costumes displayed extraordinary taste, ele- 
gance and richness. The dancing commenced early and 
continued till four o'clock in the morning. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 151 

On tlie following day lie lunched with Mr. Seligman 
and met several of the leading Parisian bankers. On the 
23d he visited the famous Sevres manufactory in company 
with Minister Noyes and General Torbert. In the even- 
ing he dined with M. Langel, where he met the Count de 
Paris and the Duke d'Aumale, M. Langel being a prom- 
inent Orleanist, several of the leaders of that party were 
present. The dinner was an elegant affair. 

On the evening of the 24th, General Grant was 
honored by a dinner given by Mrs. Sickles at her resi- 
dence in the Rue Presbourg. Among the distinguished 
guests present were General Grant and family ; Prince 
Hohenlohe, the German ambassador ; Minister Noyes and 
wife, the Marquis and Marquise de Talleyrand-Perigord, 
the Comtesse de Hanrel, Vicomte de Grante, Miss Lin- 
coln and others. At the reception subsequently held. 
Prince Orlofi" and Prince Galitzein, of the Russian Lega- 
tion ; Count d'Arci, of the German Legation, and M. 
Korn, the Swiss Minister, were present. 

Everything passed off pleasantly, and everyone seemed 
to be pleased with everybody else and everything. 

A farewell dinner was given General Grant by M. 
Harjes, the eminent banker, at his residence on the even- 
ing of November 30th. The gentlemen of the party 
were all Americans, and the affair was pronounced the 
most elegant which had occured in Paris during the 
season. General Grant and his party were accompanied 
by General Torbert. 

Having bid farewell to his Parisian friends. General 
Grant and his party left Paris for Lyons on the first of 
December. The General had greatly enjoyed his visit, 
notwithstanding the vulgar and uncalled for attacks of 
the Bonapartist press, and left the city with an excellent 
impression of Paris. 



152 



GRANT'S TOUR 



At Lyons lie was called upon by the Prefect, the 
President of the Municipal Council, and the American 
residents and several silk merchants, who accompanied 
him on a tour of inspection of the quays. The next 
day the party embarked for Marseilles. Here they re- 
mained until the 5th, when they departed for Nice, where, 
on the 10th, they took passage on the Vandalia for Naples, 
where they arrived on the 17 th. 




CHAPTEE IX. 

THE PAKTY REACH NAPLES YOUNG's LETTER VE- 
SUVIUS, AS SEEN FROM THE CITY THE ROAD TO 

THE MOUNTAIN ITS ROMANCE AND HISTORY THE 

ASCENT OVERLOOKING POMPEII— A ROMANTIC PIC- 
NIC ON THE LAVA GLIMPSES OF SOCIAL AND POLITI- 
CAL LIFE IN NAPLES AN INTERESTING JOURNEY. 

General Grant and his party reached Naples on the 
17th of December. Mr. Young thus describes what they 
saw and what they did : 

We came to Naples hoping to find sunshine, but the 
consul tells us that there has been no -such weather for 
many seasons. It would be even cold in our inclement 
New York. I rejoice in the possession of a capacious uls- 
ter, which I brought into the Mediterranean against many 
protests, but which has been a useful companion. Poor 
Naples looks especially cold. These poor souls need sun- 
shine, and they are almost too cold to beg. So much has 
been written about Naples that I may l)e spared a catalogue 
of its attractions. On entering the harbor the General and 
wife landed, and made a tour of the city. There was the 
summer palace, in which royal persons live for a few weeks 
every year, and whose grounds are open only by permis- 
sion. There is the castle of San Martin, an old monastery, 
now turned into a museum and a barracks. We spent a 
good hour in looking at its curiosities, which did not im- 
press us either as curious or startling. "This," said the 
guide, "is the picture of Mr. So-and-So, who generously 
gave this museum to Naples." "Well," said the General, in 
an aside tone, "if I had a museum like this, I would give 

10 153 



154 



GRANTS TOUR 



it to Naples, or whoever would take it." There was a beau- 
tiful chapel, in which the Lord is no longer worshipped, 
but which was a gem of elaborate decoration. There was 
a burial-ground of the monks, surrounded by marble pil- 
lars, upon which skulls were engraved. In the centre was 
one larger skull, grinning, and over the temples a wither- 
ing laurel wreath. Around this cemetery were the cloisters 
under whose arches our friends, the monks, used to read 




A DISTANT VIEW OF VESUVIUS. 

and walk and meditate, with such suggestions as the skulls 
would inspire* It was ghostly enough, and there was a 
comfort in turning from it to the balcony, a few steps off, 
which overlooked the brow of a hill, showing Naples beneath 
us and Vesuvius beyond — an overpowering picture of life 
and beauty and nature. We stood on the balcony and 
looked down from our dizzy height, and thought how much 
more in consonance with true religion it was to worship 
God as we saw Him here in His majesty and glory, and 
not over stones and bones, and sights of evil omens. 

There, far above,, was Vesuvius, and we were impa- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 155 

tient for tlie ascent. It was too late when we arrived, but 
the General, with military promptness, gave orders for the 
march next morning. We stood on the deck and studied 
the stern old mountain, and picked out the various objects 
with a telescope, and did an immense amount of reading 
on the subject. The volcano was in a lazy mood, and not 
alive to the honor of a visit from the ex-President of the 
United States, for all he deigned to give us was a lazy puff 
of smoke, not a spark, or a ilame, or a cinder. I suppose 
the old monster is an aristocrat, and a conservative, and 
said : " What do I care for Presidents, or your new Re- 
publics ? I have scattered my ashes over a Roman Repub- 
lic. I have lighted Caesar's triumphs, and thrown my 
clouds over Brutus fresh from Caesar's corpse. Why should 
I set my forces in motion to please a party of Yankee sight- 
seers, even if one of them should be a famous general and 
ex-ruler of a Republic ? I have looked upon Hannibal 
and CsBsar, Charlemagne and Bonaparte. I have seen the 
rise and fall of empires. I have admonished generations 
who worshipped Jupiter, as I have admonished generations 
who worshipped the Cross. I am the home of the gods, 
and if you would see my power look at my base and ask 
of the ashes that cumber Herculaneum and Pompeii." So 
the stubborn old monster never gave us a flash of welcome, 
only a smoky puff now and then to tell us that he was a 
monster all the time, if he only chose to manifest his awful 
will. So we stood upon the deck in speculation, and some 
of us hoped there would be an eruption, or something worth 
describing. The General was bent on climbing to the very 
summit, and looking into the crater, and with that purpose 
we started in the morning. 

We should have gone earlier, but many high j)eople 
in uniforms, commanding one thing or another, had to 
come on board and pay their respects. It was ten before 



156 GRANT'S TOUR 

we were under way, the General and party in tlie advance, 
with our driver, whom we have called the Marquis, on the 
box, and Mrs. Grant's maid bringing up the rear. We 
drove all the way. You will understand our route when 
I remind you that the Bay of Naples is something like a 
horseshoe. On one side of the shoe is the city, on the 
other is Vesuvius. Therefore, to reach the mountain, we 
have to drive around the upper circle of the shoe. The 
shores of this bay are so populous that our route seemed to 
be one continuous town. We only knew that we were 
passing the city limits, when the guard stopped our car- 
riage to ask if there was anything on which we were 
anxious to pay duty. As there was nothing but a very 
modest luncheon, we kept on, rattling through narrow, 
stony streets. Beggars kept us company, although from 
some cause or another there were not as many as we sup- 
posed. Perhaps it was the good government which we 
are told is dealing severely with beggars, or more likely 
it was the weather, which, as I remarked, is very cold 
and seems to have taken all ambition out of the people. Still 
we w.ere not without attention in this way, and from 
streets and by-roads a woman or a man, or sometimes a 
blind man led by a boy, would start up and follow us 
with appeals for money. They were starving or their 
children were starving, and lest we might not understand 
their tongue, they would pat their mouths or their breasts 
to show how empty they were. For starving persons 
they showed great courage and endurance in following 
our carriage. The General had an assortment of coins, 
and, although warned in the most judicious manner 
against encouraging pauj)erism, he did encourage it, and 
with so much success that before he was half way up the 
mountain he was a pauper himself to the extent of bor- 
rowing pennies from, some of his companions to keep up 
the demands upon his generosity. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 159 

Wliat we observed in this long ride around tlie liorse- 
slioe was that Naples was a very dirty, a very happy and 
a very picturesque town. We learned that the supply of 
rags was inexhaustible. I never knew what could be 
done with rags until I saw these lazzaroni. They seem to 
have grown rags, as a sheep grows his fleece, and yet there 
was no misery in their faces — happy, dirty, idle, light- 
eyed, skipping, sunny- — you looked in vain for those 
terrible faces of misery and woe, which one sees so often 
in London. I take it, therefore, that begging is an 
amusement, an industry, and not a necessity — that the 
Naples beggar goes out to his work like any other laborer. 
He is not driven to it by the gaunt wolves hunger and 
disease. One scamp, a gray-bearded scamp, too, who 
followed us, was a baker, who made and sold loaves. He 
was standing at his counter trading when our carriage 
hove in sight. At once he threw down his loaves and 
started after us in full chase, moaning and showing his 
tongue and beating his breast and telling us he was 
starving. Well, when he received his coin he went to his 
store, and I presume began to naggle over his bread. 
That coin was clear gain. He was not a beggar, but a 
speculator. He went into the street and made a little 
raise, just as brokers and merchants at home go into the 
"street" and try an adventure in stocks. The Neapolitan 
speculator was a wiser man than his New York brother. 
He ran no risk. Even if he did not gain his coin the run 
did him good, and his zeal gave him the reputation of an 
active business man. I learned also on this trip to rej^ress 
my appetite for maccaroni. We saw maccaroni in all 
forms and under all circumstances, dangling in the wind 
catching the dust. Give me a dish with the most suspi- 
cious antecedents rather than this maccaroni from Naples. 

In the meantime our horses begin to moderate their 



160 GRANT'S TOUR 

pace, and the streets to show an angle, and horsemen sur- 
round our carriage and tell us in a variety of tongues that 
they are guides, and, if we require it, will go to the sum- 
mit. Women come to cabin doors and hold up bottles of 
white wine— the wine called Lachrymae Christi by some 
horrible irreverence — and ask us to stop and drink. And 
already the houses begin to thin, and we have fields 
around us and glimpses of the sea; and although the 
lazy volcano, with its puffs of smoke, looks as far distant 
as when we were on the deck of the Vandalia, miles 
away, we know that the ascent has begun, and that we are 
really^ climbing the sides of Mount Vesuvius. 

While we are making this slow ascent, let me recall 
some facts about Vesuvius which are the results of recent 
reading — reading made with a view to this journey. In 
the times of fable these lava hills were said to have been 
the scene of a battle between the giants and the gods, in 
which Hercules took part. Here was the Lake Avernus, 
whose exhalations were so fatal that the birds would not 
fly over its surface. Here, also, was the prison house of 
Typhon, although some critics assign him to ^tna. But 
^tna, Vesuvius and Stromboli are a trinity of volcanoes, 
evidently outlets to the one sea of fire, and any one would 
do for the prison house of a god. It was here that Ulysses 
came, as you will find in the eleventh book of the Odyssey. 
Three centuries before the Christian era a great battle was 
fought at Vesuvius between the Komans and the Latins, 
the battle in which Decius lost his life. It was on Vesuvius 
that Spartacus encamped with his army of gladiators and 
bondsmen, in his magnificent but unavailing blow lor free- 
dom. Just now there are two cones or craters — one pas- 
sive, one active. We read in Dion Cassius of an eruption 
which does not speak of the present crater. The great 
eruptions are placed in the years 79, 203, 472^ 912, ^^6, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 161 

and 993. The eruption in 472 seems to have been the se- 
verest known since the shower of ash is destroyed Pompeii. 
In the early eruptions there was nothing but ashes and 
stones. The first mention of lava was in 572. Sometimes 
the volcano has done nothing but smoke for a century or 
two. About three centuries ago a new peak, about 440 
feet in height, was formed in twenty-four hours, and there 
it is now before us, as Monte Nuovo. There was no erup- 
tion, however, and the hill is as placid as one of your 
orange hills in New Jersey. In the last century there 
was a good deal of movement, as we have from the pen of 
Sir William Hamilton, the British Minister at Naples, ac- 
counts of eruptions in 1776, 1777, and 1779. There are 
also pictures in the Museum of two eruptions in the later 
part of the century, which must have been terrible enough 
to suggest the last day, if the artist painted truly. In one 
of these eruptions the liquid lava, mixed with stones and sco- 
riae, rose 10,000 feet. At times Sir William saw a fountain of 
liquid transparent fire, casting so bright a light that the small- 
est objects could be clearly distinguished within six miles of 
the mountain. There was another eruption in 1793, 
which Dr. Clarke described — volleys of immense stones. 
The doctor went as near the crater as possible, and was 
nearly sufibcated by the fumes of sulphur. The lava 
poured down the sides in a slow, glowing, densely flowing 
stream. Thousands of stones were in the air. The clouds 
over the crater were as white as the purest snow. In a 
week the lava stopped, and columns of light red flame, 
beautiful to view, illuminated the top. Millions of red- 
hot stones were thrown into the air, and after this came 
explosions and earthquakes, shocks louder than cannon, 
terrible thunder, with a "noise like the trampling of 
horses' feet." The next eruption was in 1822, when the 
crater fell, reducing the mountain's height about eight 



162 GRANT'S TOUR 

hundred feet. Since 1822 there have been several erup- 
tions, the most important happening in 1861. Vesuvius 
is now a double mountain, upon an extended base, from 
thirty to forty miles in circumference, not more than one- 
third the base of Mount ^tna. Its height varies. In 
1868 it was four -thousand, two hundred and fifty-five 
feet, but since 1872 it has slightly diminished. Stromboli 
is three thousand and twenty-two feet, but although in 
constant motion, the stones nearly all fall back into the 
crater. ^Etna is ten thousand, eight hundred and seventy 
feet in height, but slopes so gradually, and has so broad a 
base, that it looks more like a table-land than a mountain. 
I did not see Stromboli, for, although we sailed near it, 
the mist and rain hid it from view. I have seen ^tna, 
however, and think it far less imposing and picturesque 
than Vesuvius. 

In the meantime we are going up steadily. The 
horses go slower and slower. Some of us get out and help 
them by walking part of the way and taking short cuts. 
The few houses that we see on the roadside have evidently 
been built with a view to eruptions, for the roofs are 
made of heavy stone and cement. General Grant notes 
that where the lava and stones have been allowed to rest 
and to mingle with the soil good crops spring up, and 
there we note a flourishing bit of vineyard. Soon, how- 
ever, vineyards disappear, and after the vineyards the 
houses, except an occasional house of shelter, into 
which we are all invited to enter and drink of the Tears 
of Christ. Our convoy of horsemen, who have been fol- 
lowing us for a mile or two, begin to drop off. The Mar- 
quis has been preaching to them from the box in various 
languages upon their folly in wasting time, and they 
heed his warning. There are no beggars. It is remarked 
that beggars always prefer a dead level. One bright- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 163 

I 

eyed boy keeps at our side, a lad with about as dirty a 
suit of clothes and as pretty a pair of eyes as you could 
see even in squalid, smiling Naples. Well, there is some- 
thing in the eyes, or it may be in the boyishness of their 
possessor, which quite wins one of the party, for when 
the Marquis insists that he shall join his fellow mendi- 
cants in the valley below, a gracious protection is thrown 
over him, and he followed us up the road. I think the 
patronage must have pleased him, for he gathered a hand- 
ful of wild flowers and presented them, and refused a coin 
which was offered in return ; but the refusal of this coin 
did not prevent the acceptance of two or three others and 
a good dinner included an hour or two later in the day. 
Still we climb the hill, going steadily up. Those of 
us who thought we could make 'the way on foot repent, 
for the way is steep and the road is hard. All around us 
is an ocean of chaos and death. There, in all forms and 
shapes, lie the lava streams that did their work in other 
days, black and cold and forbidding. You can trace the 
path of each eruption as distinctly as the windings of the 
stream from the mountain top. We are now high up on 
the mountain, and beneath us is the valley and the bay 
of Naples, with Ischia and Capri, and on the other 
horizon a range of mountains tinged and tipped with 
snow. In one direction we see the eruption of 1872 ; 
the black lava stream bordered with green. What forms 
and shapes ! What fantastic, horrible shapes the fire as- 
sumes in the hours of its triumph ! I can well see how 
Martial and Virgil, and the early poets saw in these phe- 
nomena the stripes and anger of the gods. Virgil describes 
Enceladus trasfixed by Jove, and the mountain thrown 
upon him, which shakes and trembles whenever he turns 
his weary sides. This is the scene, the very scene of his 
immortal agony. There are no two forms alike; all is 



164 



GRANT'S TOUR 



black, cold and pitiless. If we could only see one living 
thing in this mass of destruction ; but all is death, all deso- 
lation. Here and there, where the rains have washed the 
clay, and the birds, perhaps, may have carried seed, the 
grass begins to grow ; but the whole scene is desolation. 
I thought of the earlier ages, when the earth was black 
and void, and fancied that it was just such an earth as 
this when Divinity looked upon it and said, " Let there be 
light." I thought of the end of all things, of our earth, 
our fair, sweet and blooming earth, again a mass of lava, 
rock and ashes, life all gone out of it, rolling through 
space. 




THE HERMITAGE. 



The presence of a phenomenon like this and right 
above us the everseething crater is in itself a solemn and 
beautiful sight. We all left repaid with our journey ; for 
by this time we had come to the journey's end, musings 
upon eternity and chaos did not forbid thoughts of lunch- 



1 



AROUND THE WORLD. 165' 

eon. For the wind was cold and we were hungry. So 
when our illustrious captain intimated that we might seek 
a place of refuge and entertainment a light gleamed in the 
eyes of the Marquis, and he reined us up at a hostelry 
called the Hermitage. This is the last resting place before 
we reach the ascent of the crater. Here the roads stop, 
and the remainder of the journey must be made on foot. 
Just beyond the Hermitage is a government institution 
known as the Observatory, a point where information for 
weather reports is gained. We thought when we came 
into these upper regions that we were in an atmosphere too 
pure for the beggars. We were congratulating ourselves 
upon this circumstance coming up the mountain side, but 
on descending we had a beggar or two to await us. I sup- 
130se they belong to the hostelry and were simply speculating 
upon us like our friend, the baker, whom we had left hag- 
gling over his loaves far down in Naples. Some of us, the 
General certamly, had come this distance meaning to climb 
the crater. But it was very cold, and we had delayed our 
departure from the ship, so that the day was well on. So, 
instead of climbing the rocks and looking into a sulphurous 
crater, we organized a kind of picnic in the Hermitage. 
The house seemed to have been an inquisition or a dungeon 
— the rooms were so large, the walls were so thick, there 
were such mysterious, narrow passages and chambers. But 
people who build houses under the rim of Vesuvius must 
build for fire and flame and showers of ashes and stones, 
and the Hermitage could stand a severe eruption before it 
became untenable. A slight crackling fire of twigs was 
made on the hearth and a brazier of burning coals was 
brought into the room. We were some time m compre- 
hending the brazier, but when its uses became apparent it 
was comforting enough. There, in quite a primitive fash- 
ion, we had our luncheon, helping ourselves and each 



166 GRANTS TOUR 

other in good, homely American fashion, for we were as 
far from the amenities of civilization as though we were in 
Montana. Then after luncheon we walked about, looking 
at the crater, where fiimes were quite apparent; at the 
world of desolation around us, some of it centuries old, but 
as fresh and terrible as when it burst from the world of 
fire beneath us. But there was still another picture — one 
of sublime and marvellous beauty. There beneath us, in 
clear, sunny air — there was Naples, queen among cities, 
and her villages clustering about her. Beautiful, won- 
drously beautiful, that panorama of hill and field and sea 
that rolled before us thousands of feet below ! We could 
count twenty villages in the plain, their white roofs massed 
together and spangling the green plain like gems. There 
were Capri and Ischia — ^their rugged outlines softened by 
the purple-golden glow of the passing day — lying at the 
mouth of the bay as if to guard this rich valley. 
There was Naples, her rags and dirt quite veiled and only 
her beauty to be seen. There was Misenum, where Pliny 
watched the destruction of Pompeii. There was Nisita, 
where Brutus took refuge when he fled from the murder 
of Csesar. There was Sorrento, where Tasso lived. Every 
village has its history and associations, for these plains aud 
islands and promontories have been for ages the seats of a 
brilliant and glorious civilization — a civilization which even 
now only shows the beauty of decay. The splendor of a 
Boman imperial cizilization has gone from Italy. Ages of 
darkness and superstition and despotism have rested upon 
her like the ashes which cover Pompeii. Let us hope that 
a new era is coming, which, based upon freedom and patri- 
otism, will far excel even that of the Caesars. These were 
our thoughts as we stood in the cold winds studying the 
magnificent scene. And thinking of the living, we thought 
of the dead — of the cities of the plains which perished 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



167 



1,700 years ago. The romance that surrounds Naples only 
deepens the tragedy of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and we 
found our thoughts ever turning from the glory and majesty 
of all we saw to those buried cities of the plains. These 
were the burden of many words and thoughts as we were 
hurried home again — home to our graceful vessel whose 
lights awaited us in the harbor. 

Pindar's description of ^tna applies equally well to 
Vesuvius. 

" Forth from whose nitrous caverns issuing rise, 

Pure liquid fountains of tempestous fire, 
And vail in ruddy mists the noonday skies, 

While wrapt in smoke the eddying flames aspire ; 
Or gleaming through the night with hideous roar, 

Far o'er the red'ning main huge rocky fragments pour." 




CHAPTEE X. 

A DAY AMONG THE KUINS OF POMPEII — THE CITY OF 

HANNIBAL AND C^SAR THE FALL OF POMPEII 

FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE CENTURIES OF PEACE 

THE VISIT TO THE MUSEUM THE VILLA OF A 

ROMAN PATRICIAN REMARKABLE APARTMENTS ART 

IN POMPEII THE FORUM AND TEMPLES THE TEMPLE 

OF ISIS THE SHOWS ON STAGE AND ARENA -^-GLADI- 

TORIAL DISPLAYS POMPEII AS A HOME A SPECIAL 

EXCAVATION FOR GENERAL GRANT AN INTERESTING 

VISIT. 

On the day following the ascent of Mount Vesuvius, 
General Grant and family, accompanied by Mr. B. Odell* 
Duncan, United States Consul, Commander Robinson, of 
the Vandalia, Lieutenants Strong, Hush and Miller, and 
Engineer Baird, visited the ruins of Pompeii. Says Mr. 
Young : 

We arrived at Pompeii early, considering that we had 
to ride fourteen or fifteen miles, But the morning was cold 
enough to be grateful to our Northern habits, and there 
was sunshine. Our coming had been expected, and we 
were welcomed by a handsome young guide, who talked a 
form of English in a rather high key, as though we were 
all a little hard of hearing. This guide informed us that 
he had waited on General Sheridan when he visited Pom- 
peii. He was a soldier, and we learned that the guides 
are all soldiers, who receive duty here as a reward for me- 
ritorious service. There was some comfort in seeing Pom- 
peii accompanied by a soldier, and a brave one. This 
especial guide was intelligent, bright, and well up in all 
concerning Pompeii, We entered the town at once through 

168 



AROUND THE WORLD. 169 

a gate leading through an embankment. Althougli Pom- 
peii, so far as excavated, is as open to the air as New York, 
it is surrounded by an earthen mound resembling some of 
our railway embankments in America. Looking at it from 
the outside you might imagine it an embankment, and ex- 
pect to see a train of cars whirling along the surface. It 
is only when you pass u]) a stone-paved slope a few paces 
that the truth comes upon you, and you see that you are 
in the City of Death. You see before you a long, narrow 
street, running into other narrow streets. You see quaint, 
curious houses in ruins. You see fragments, statues, mounds, 
walls. You see curiously painted walls. You see where 
men and women lived, and how they lived — all silent and 
all dead — and there comes over you that appalling story 
which has fascinated so many generations of men — the 
story of the destruction of PomjDcii and Herculaneum. 

You will say, "Yes, every schoolboy knows that 
story;" and I suppose it is known in schoolboy fashion. It 
will complete my chronicle of General Grant's visit if you 
will allow me to tell it over again. In the grand days of 
Rome, Pompeii was a walled city, numbering about 
twenty thousand inhabitants. It was built on the sea coast, 
and was protected from the sea by a wall. I should say 
in extent about as large as the lower section of New York, 
drawing a line across the island from river to river, 
through the Herald office. It was an irregular five-sided 
town, with narrow streets. Its inhabitants were, as a 
general thing, in good standing, because they came here to 
spend their summers. I suppose they had about the same 
standing in Poman society as the inhabitants of Newport 
have in American society. Pompeii was an American 
Newport, a city of recreation and pleasure. It is said the 
town was founded by Hercules, but that fact you must 
verify for yourself. It was the summer capital of the 



170 GRANTS TOUR 

luxurious Camj^ina, and joined Hannibal in liis wars 
against Rome. Hannibal proposed a kind of Southern 
Confederacy arrangement, with Capua as capital. After 
Hannibal had been defeated, Caj)ua was destroyed and 
Pompeii spared — spared in the end for a fate more terrible. 
Cicero lived near Pompeii, and emperors came here for 
their recreation. In the year 63 the city had an omen of 
its fate by an earthquake, which damaged the town 
seriously, throwing down statues, swallowing up sheep, so 
appalling "that many people lost their wits." In 64, when 
Nero was in Na23les singing, there was another earthquake, 
which threw down the building in which His Majesty had 
been entertaining his friends. This was the second warn- 
ing. The end came on the 24th of October, 79, and we 
know all the facts from the letters written by Pliny, the 
Younger, to Tacitus — letters which had a mournful inter- 
est to the writer, because they told him that Pliny, the Elder, 
lost his life in the general desolation. Pliny tells how he 
was with his uncle, who commanded the Poman fleet at 
Misenum. Misenum is just across the bay from Pompeii — 
twenty miles, perhaps, as the crow flies. On the 24th 
of August, Pliny, the Elder, was taking the benefit of the 
sun — ^that is to say, he had annointed his person and walked 
naked, as was the custom of prudent Pomans. He had 
taken his sun bath and retired to his library, when he 
noticed something odd about Vesuvius. The cloud as- 
sumed the form of a gigantic pine tree and shot into the 
air to a prodigious height. Pliny ordered his galley to be 
manned, and sailed across the bay direct for Vesuvius, 
over the bay where you may now see fishing boats and 
steamers. 

A letter from some friends whose villas were at the 
bap.e of the mountain warned him that there was some dan- 
ger brewing, and, like a Poman and a sailor, he sailed to 



AROUND THE WORLD. 171 

their rescue. As he drew near the mountain, the air was 
filled with cinders. Burning rocks and pumice stones fell 
upon his decks, the sea retreated from the land and rocks 
of great size rolled down the mountain. His pilot begged 
him to return to Misenum and not brave the anger of the 
gods. "Fortune," he said, "favors the brave — carry me to 
Pomponianus." Pomponianus was what we now call 
Castellamare, a little port from which the fish comes. 
Here the eruption fell upon him. The houses shook 
from side to side, the day was darker than the darkest 
night. The people were in the fields with pillows 
on their heads, carrying torches. The fumes of sul- 
phur prostrated Pliny and he fell dead. The scene 
of the actual destruction can be told in no better words 
than those of the younger Pliny, who watched the scene 
from Misenum. Pemember it was twenty miles away, and 
you can fancy what it must have been in , Pompeii. " I 
turned my head," writes Pliny, " and observed behind us a 
thick smoke, which came rolling after us like a torrent, I 
proposed, while we had yet any light, to turn out into the 
high road lest we should be pressed to death in the dash of 
the crowd that followed us. We had scarcely stepped out 
of the path when darkness overspread us, not like that of a 
cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but of a room 
when it is shut up and all the lights are extinct. Nothing 
then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams 
of children and the cries of men; some calling for their 
children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, 
and only distinguishing each other by their voices; one 
lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some 
wishing to die from the very fear of dying; some lifting their 
hands to the gods, but the greater portion imagining that the 
last and eternal night had come which was to destroy the 
world and the gods together. Among these were some 



172 GRANT'S TOUR 

who augmented the real terrors with, imaginary ones, and 
made the affrighted multitude falsely believe that Misenum 
was actually in flames. At length a glimmering light 
appeared which we imagined to be rather a forerunner of 
an approaching burst of flame, as in truth it was, than the 
return of day. However, the fire fell at a distance from us. 
Then again we were immersed in thick darkness and a 
heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were 
obliged every now and then to shake off*, otherwise we 
should have been crushed and buried in the heap. At last 
this dreadful darkness dissipated by degrees, like a cloud of 
smoke, the real day returned, and even the sun apjDcared, 
though very faintly and as when an eclij^se is coming on. 
Every object that presented itself to our eyes, which were 
extremely weakened, seemed changed, being covered over 
with white ashes as with a deejj snow." 

This was in the latter part of October, 79, and Pom- 
peii slept in peace. Ashes twenty feet deep covered the 
town, and it is believed that ten thousand persons perished. 
In 1748 the first excavations were made by the Bourbon 
Charles III. The villa of Diomedes was opened in 1771. 
It was- in this villa that a group of eighteen skeletons were 
found. It was not until 1806, when the French took 
Naples, that the work was pursued with any intelligence. 
About one-third of the town has already been opened, and 
the excavation goes on under intelligent and judicious 
superintendence. 

Our first visit was to the Museum, a carefully arranged 
museum. Here you may see windows and doors as they 
came from the ruins. There are also casts of eight human 
bodies, the faces and forms expressing the agony of the last 
moment. One form is that of a finely formed women, her 
brow resting ujoon her arm, lying in an easy attitude of 
repose. Some had their clothing, others scarcely a vestige 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



173 



of clotlimg. Some were in attitudes of despair and com- 
bat, as thougli they would resist Death when he came. 
There were skeletons of animals and skulls. There were 
vases as they came from the opened chambers, rainspouts 
in terra cotta, helmets, bucklers and swords that belonged 
to the gladiators. There was bread as found in the oven, 
and a dish in which the meat was roasting. There was a 
pot in which were the remnants of a sucking pig, the skele- 
ton of the pig clearly traceable. There were barley and 
olives and all kinds of food. Almonds, pears and figs, 




RUINS AT POMPEII. 

pouches of coin, sandals, garments, rings and trinkets, 
amulets that were to keep off the evil eye. All was here 
arranged as found in the ashes of the buried city. And 
all was so real — so horribly real — I cannot express the im- 
pression which came over us as we pass from the gate into 
the very street of the buried town — ^the very streets of this 



174 GRANT'S TOUR 

bright, gay, luxurious town. We could not realize the 
solemnity of Pompeii. It seemed so natural that we should 
come here — so natural that we should be at home, so natural 
that this should be a living and not a town that had been 
buried and risen again — that our visit seems a day's holi- 
day in a charming country town, and not a mournful 
march through a town of ashes and death. 

Here, for instance, is the home of our friend, M. Arrius 
Diomedes. Our friend is a patrician, a great man in Rome, 
wl:o came to his villa by the sea for summer air and repose 
after the cares of the capital. I am certain that he Avould 
receive us with true Roman courtesy did he know of our 
arriving. But he has vanished into the night, and all we 
have is the gracious word " Salve,^^ in mosaic, on the door 
sill. Here it is in indelible mosaic, curiously worked, is it 
not ? You push the ashes away with your foot, for some- 
how our patrician friend is not as well served with all of 
his slaves. You push the ashes aside and read the warm 
word of welcome, its white stones smiling as though they 
would anticipate the greeting of the master. So encour- 
aged, we trace our way into this suburban villa. The 
street through which we have just passed is the Street of 
the Tombs, but let us draw no inhospitable omen from 
that, for our Roman friends are stoics and find no terror in 
death. There is much dust and ashes, and roofs that might 
be mended, and the villa of M. Arrius Diomedes has 
changed somewhat since his retreating footsteps pressed for 
the last time the welcoming word on his door-sill. We can 
examine this house at our leisure, if we are curious to see 
how our noble friends lived in the golden days when Cae- 
sars reigned. You note that there is a slight ascent to the 
house, the doorway being as much as six or seven feet 
above the roadway. Well, this is as should become a 
patrician, and a man like Diomedes does not choose to live 



AR O UND THE WO RLD. 175 

under tlie staring gaze of gladiators and tragic poets and 
the riff-raff of people who flock about Pompeii. You go 
up the porch by an inclined plane, and pass through the 
peristyle into an open courtyard, where the ram was gath- 
ered. On one side the descending staircases point the way 
to the rooms devoted to the humbler offices of this princely 
house. Around us are rooms, say twenty in all, which open 
on the courtyard. In one corner are the rooms for bathing, 
for our host belongs to a race who do honor to the gods by 
honormg the bo ay which the gods gave them. 

Here are cooling chambers, warm chambers, an anoint- 
ing room, a furnace. If you do not care to go through 
the process of a bath you may anoint youself and walk in 
the sun. Here is a chamber fitted for the purpose — a gal- 
lery lighted by windows looking out ujDon the trellises, 
where I am sure the roses would be creeping in luxuriant 
bloom were our friend only here to look after his home. 
The roses have faded, but if you pass into a small room to 
the right you will see why this gallery was built. Out of 
that window — ^which, .unfortunately, is wanting in glass — 
out of that window, through which you may gaze while 
your slave anoints your person and perfumes your tresses, 
you may see the parlors, and beyond the gardens the whole 
sweeping Bay of Naples as far as Sorrento. After you 
have enjoyed your bath, and care to discipline your body 
further, here is another room, into which the sun beats 
with unimpeded power, a room given to indoor games and 
amusements. Here is the eating room, commanding a view 
of a garden, and here is a room which was once the library 
— a library of papyrus volumes — where we can fancy our 
friend studying the sciences with Pliny, or verifying a 
quotation with Cicero. The papyrus rolls are not here, to 
be sure, although some of them are up in the Naples 
Museum, and since we have this modern fashion of printing 



176 



GRANTS TOUR 



we shall not envy M. Diomedes his few cherished scrolls. 
And if you ask for the ladies you are pointed to the stair- 
case leading to the gymnasium, or the door leading to the 
venerium, where I am afraid we should not, under ordinary 
circumstances, be welcome. You see our friend has exclu- 
sive notions about the ladies, and prefers to dispense his 







-■* J> ' 






***■-.- 









A HOME IN ANCIENT POMPEII. 



own hospitalities. Beyond these rooms is a garden, 'a gar- 
den enclosed by walls, and over the walls should be a 
trellis of flowers. Under the walls is a portico, where M. 
Diomedes and his friends can walk when it rains. Here 
should be a fountain, rather here is the fountain, but the 
waters somehow have ceased to flow. But you may put your 
fingers into the very spout and admire the grain of the 
marble, for the work came from the hands of cunning 
workmen. If you open this door — alas ! I am afraid it is 
open, with no prospect of its being closed — if you open 
this gate you will find that it is the rear of the villa, and 



AROUND THE WORLD, 177 

looks out uj^on the yineyards, the gardens and the sea. 
This garden should be full of mulberries and figs, and if 
the gardening slaves were diligent we should now be 
walking, not in ashes, but under a shady wall of vines, 
and breathing the perfume of the violet and the rose. 

You will observe,.iftime is not pressing, that our friend 
was fond of the arts, and that the walls of these rooms 
are decorated with care. This is none of your whitewash- 
ing — none of your French joaper and modern English deco- 
rations, all running to pale green and gray. Our noble 
host lived in the land of sunshine, and drew his colors from 
the rainbow. To be sure, the colors do look fresh — so 
fresh as to make you wonder if they are already diy. 
But time will give them the Titian and Rembrandt tint ; 
time will mellow them if we only wait long enough. AYhen 
a Koman nobleman builds a house like this, a home pos- 
sessing all that taste and luxury and wealth can wish — if 
I say a Koman patrican like Marcus Arrius Diomedes 
plants all these gardens, and constructs so luxurious a 
home, you must not be impatient at the glaring colors. 
Perhaps if you are an artist, you will note the poverty of 
his invention in the matter of colors — red, blue, green, 
yellow and black. These are all that seem to have occurred 
to his artists. And you will object to many of his pagan 
themes. But do not forget, I pray you, that our friend is 
a pagan, and you will find in this home and the homes of 
his neighbors and kinsmen many thmgs to offend a taste 
educated up to the moral standard of Boston and New York. 
But happily we are neither missionaries nor critics, but 
friends from far America — who have heard much of Pompeii, 
and have come to call upon this opulent citizen. See with 
what minute care this house is decorated. The floors are 
of mosaic — white stones on black ground, or black stones 
on white ground, describing plain geometrical lines and 



178 GRANT'S TOUR 

curves. If you study closely this mosaic work, you will 
find it of marble (black and white) and red tiles, buried in 
mortar. We are now looking at the ordinary mosaic 
work, the courtyards and doorways. Here is the finer 
work. 

There, for instance, is a group of dancers and musi- 
cians, masked figures, playmg u]3on the tambourine, the 
cymbals and the pipe. What skill, what patience in the 
fashioning, in the folding drapery, movement of the limbs, 
harmony of motion ! You note that the walls are all painted, 
and if you do not like the glaring colors in some rooms, 
pause for a moment before this figure, a female form float- 
ing in space. The lips are open in the ecstasy of motion, 
the limbs are poised in the air, and the light drapery, 
through which the sun shines, seems to toy with the breeze ; 
the bosom almost heaves with life and youth. It means 
nothmg, you say. You miss the sweetness of the later 
schools ; you see nothing of the divine, seraphic beauty 
which lives in the Madonnas of Kaphael ; you miss the 
high teachings of our modern art — the mother's love in 
the virgin's face, the love that embraceth all things in the 
face of the "suffering Redeemer. You miss all this, and 
long for that magic pencil which told, as in a poem or an 
opera, of the splendor of ancient or modern Rome. You 
say that our friend knew only of fauns and satyrs, and 
beastly representations of lecherous old Silenus, and that 
drunken brute Bacchus ; that even his Venus was a degra- 
dation rather than an idealization of woman ; that his art 
was physical, and became an apotheosis of strength and 
vice and passion. You ask what possible use, either as 
entertainment or study, can there be in a bearded Bacchus, 
or in any other things that I am not permitted to describe ? 
This art is not our art, and as we study it and admire 
much of its taste and skill and truth to nature, we cannot 



AROUND THE WORLD. 179 

but feel, witli gratefiil hearts, that the Pompeiian age is 
dead, and that we come in a new age ; that the gods whom 
our friend worshipped have faded into night, and that a 
nobler, higher faith has taken their place, giving purity to 
our art. This we owe to the work done by Jesus Christ. 
And if you marvel that our friend Marcus Arrius Diome- 
des did not feel these same influences, remember that our 
friend is a Roman, a patrician, and a man of great wealth 
and station, and not a man to shape his taste after the 
canons of a Jewish carpenter, crucified just seventy-nine 
years ago, and of Jewish fishermen who followed him, and. 
have been meetly punished for their follies and crimes. 

But our friend Diomedes does not come, and I am afraid 
there is no use in waiting. - Pompeii is a most mteresting 
town, and there are a thousand other things to be seen — the 
Forum, for instance; the amphitheatre, the temples of 
Jupiter and Venus, the Exchange, the tombs. How real it 
all seems! Here are the narrow streets, with stepping 
stones to keep us out of the running water as we cross. 
Here is the wide street, the Broadway of the town, and 
you can see the chariot ruts worn deep into jthe stone. 
The General notes that some of the streets are out of repair, 
and it is suggested that Tweed was not the first magistrate 
who failed to pave the roads. Here are the shops on the 
highway, shops in which you can buy and sell to your 
heart's content if we can only believe the signs on the walls. 
One irritable merchant (I suppose he has amassed a large 
fortune and retired from business) informs the public that 
there must be no lounging about his shop and that if peo- 
ple do not mean business they had better go elsewhere. 
If you think my translation is a free one, I will give you 
the exact inscription : — " Otiosis locus hie non est, diseede 
morator,^^ — "Loiterer, pass on; this is no place for idlers." 
Passers-by are warned against committing trespass by two 



180 GRANTS TOUR 

large serpents, painted on the walls, and if we are disposed 
to seek their entertainment in Pompeii, not- having found 
M. Diomedes at home, here is a tavern, the Elephant Snake 
Inn I suppose it should be called, having as its sign an 
elejohant in the folds of a serpent. The sign also • informs 
us that within may be found triclinium, or dining room, 
"with three beds and other conveniences." Politics seem 
to be running high in this luxurious town. Here is an 
advertisement in which Philippus beseeches favor and 
patronage that he may be made a duumvir of justice. 
Let us hope that earnest Philippus received his office and 
remained true to his party and kept away from the re- 
formers. Sometimes these inscriptions take the form of 
compliment and adulation. The candidates, instead of be- 
seeching suffrage of the unterrified, the high-minded peo- 
2ole, seek the the aid of some high placed citizen, just as, a 
century or two ago, our tragic poets and comedians used to 
address their wishes to some mighty duke or more ducal 
lord and king. You note that in spite of paganism and 
other things in which we have improved, there was a 
great deal of human nature — of Massachusetts and Brook- 
lyn human nature — in these Pompeiians. In those days peo- 
ple wrote on the walls, as at home idiots do now, their names 
and inscriptions, verses from a poem, jibes from a comedy. 
Here is an advertisement setting forth that Julia Felix, 
daughter of Spurius, has to let a bath, a venereum, 900 
shops with booths and garrets, for a term of five years from 
the 6th of August. Mme. Julia wishes likewise tenants 
with references, as she has no desire to deal with immoral 
persons. Another scribe named Issus seeks the patron- 
age of the iEdile as one "most deserving." We note as 
we go on that this was a city of many fountains, and that 
superstition wai rife, there being on every house some en- 
graved charm to protect the inhabitants from the evil eye. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 181 

I wish these charms we're all as innocent and proper in 
their character as our dear old homely horseshoe, which 
has protected so many generations from the perils of 
witchcraft. 

The sun is shining as we pass from the narrow streets 
and come upon the Forum. The heart leaps as we look 
upon this scene of the elegance and the strife and the pa- 
triotism of twenty centuries ago. The sun shines upon 
many a broken column, upon entablatures falling into 
decay, upon plinths and moulds that retain onlj[ a faint 
semblance of their former beauty. I have seen a pic- 
ture called " Pompeii Restored," with special reference to 
the Forum. I see an oblong space like that in the court- 
yard of the Louvre. This space is surrounded by columns 
forming an arcade. On one side was the temple of Mer- 
cury, on the other the Pantheon. This space is 524 feet 
long and 150 feet wide. On the other side is the Temple of 
Jupiter and the Temple of Venus. The temple of Jupiter 
borders on a road spanned by triumphal arches — one to 
the immortal glory of Nero, that great emperor who one 
day rode in triumph down the very road over which we 
are sauntering this morning in the wake of a nimble and 
loud-talking guide. This temple of Jupiter is the home of 
the presiding deities of Pompeii, if any of us chose to go in 
and worship. But I am afraid we are more interested in 
the prison where the skeletons of the prisoners were found, 
the shackles still confining them. Here is the Pantheon, 
or what we are at liberty to call a Pantheon until the men 
of science really determine whether it is so or not, or, as is 
supposed, a temple of Vesta. I am afraid it makes very 
little difference now what it is, as it is incontinently a ruin. 
Another building about which there is doubt is called the 
Senaculum, where the Senators met. These various tem- 
ples were decorated with a profusion which I have not 



182 GRANTS TOUR 

space to catalogue. Statues, endless statues, busts, paint- 
ings, sacred utensils, altars and columns — what a world of 
wealth and labor was expended upon the worship of these 
pagan gods ! What a strange religion it must have been! 
Here are dancing figures, battles with crocodiles, devotees 
performing' sacrifice to Priapus. Here, more apt than the 
others, to-day, at least, is Penelope discovering Ulysses. 
In the rooms of one of the priests of the Temple of Venus 
was a painting of Bacchus and Silenus, which must have 
inspired a frail kind of devotion. Around the Forum are 
pedestals on which were exalted in their day the statues of 
the men and the gods Pompeii delighted to honor. If we 
marvel at the extreme expense lavished on the Forum, 
especially as compared with the other parts of the town, 
we must remember that in those ancient days the Forum 
was where the Poman citizen passed most of his time. He 
spent his days at the baths, the theatre and the Forum, 
and, as a consequence, whenever you find any remains of 
the old Pome you find that the baths, the theatre and the 
Forum were the centres of disj)lay. 

We might spend more time with the temples, but I 
am afraid the religion of Pompeii is not severe enough to 
inspire our awe. There is a temple to Fortune, built by 
one Marcus Tullius, supposed descendant of Cicero. There 
are temples to Isis and Esculapius — that of Isis being in 
excellent preservation. These priests were severer in their 
devotions than our friends who held out at the other estab- 
lishments. They were celibates, who lived mainly on fish, 
never eating onions or the flesh of the sheep or hog. I 
suppose they were faithful in some respects, for the skele- 
tons of two were found in this very temple, one attempting 
to break a door with an axe and another at dinner. As 
one of the rules of this Order was perpetual devotion be- 
fore the statue of the' Deity, it is supposed they were at 




A TEMPLE IN POMPEI. 



AROUND THE WORLD, 185 

their prayers when the hour came. Let us honor them 
for that, and trust that even fidehty to poor, foohsh Isis 
will not be forgotten in the day when all remembered 
deeds are to have their last account. 

But almost as dear to Pompeii as her baths and forum 
were the theatres. Here is a building which is known as 
the school of the gladiators. All the evidences show that 
Pompeii excelled in gladiatorial displays. Why not ? Her 




RUINS OP THE THEATRE AT POMPEII. 

people were rich and refined, and in no way could a com- 
munity show its wealth so much as by patronizing the 
gladiators. The school shows that there were accommoda- 
tions for as many as 132 in that building alone. Inscrip- 
tions show that in some of the public displays as many as 
thirty or thirty-five pairs of gladiators exhibited at one 
time. We did not visit the large amphitheatre, the small 
theatre being sufficient for our purpose. The ancient thea- 



186 GRANT'S TOUR 

tres were always open to the sun, this being a climate 
blessed with a sun. They were planned very much like 
our own. Where plays were performed there was a stage, 
an orchestra, rows of shelving seats made of cement or 
stone, aisles and corridors and lobbies, just as you find 
them in Wallack's or Drury Lane. The mask played a 
prominent part in these plays, no object being more com- 
mon among the discoveries of Pompeii than the tragic and 
the comic mask. The plays were mainly from the Greek, 
and one can imagine and almost envy the multitudes who 
swarmed along these benches and witnessed the tragedies 
of ^schylus. There is room enough in this theatre (the 
one which General Grant and his party so calmly sur- 
veyed) to contain 5,000 people. Beyond this is a small 
theatre, which would hold 1,500 persons. The amphithe- 
atre is at the outside of the town, and from the plans of it 
your correspondent studied, our party being too weary to 
walk the distance, it was a counterpart of the bull rings 
which you see in Spain at the present clay. The amj^hi- 
theatre was the popular place of amusement in Pompeii, 
as the bull ring is to-day in Madrid and Seville.. It had 
accommodations for the whole population. In the centre 
was an arena, and in the centre of the arena an altar dedi- 
cated to Pluto or Diana, or some of the Jupiter species. 
It was here that the gladiators fought. Sometimes they 
fought with wild beasts which were introduced into the arena. 
We have representations in the museum of combats 
between gladiators and the bull, the lion and the panther. 
In some of these pictures the man is unarmed. Others 
show a gladiator in the attitude of a Spanish matador in a 
bull ring, fighting a bear. The gladiator holds the cloak 
in one hand and the sword in the other, precisely as Senor 
Don Larzuello goes down the arena in Madrid to fight an 
Andalusian bull. There are frescoes showing how men 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



187 



fought on horseback, the men armed with helmets, sj^ears 
and over bucklers about large enough to cover the breast. 
The most frequent are those of gladiators on foot, wearing 
winged helmets, buskins of leather, on the thighs iron 
guards, greaves on the knees, and other parts of the body 
naked. You remember, no doubt, the picture of Gerome, 
representing the arena-^one gladiator prostrate, the other 
over him, with sword extended, awaiting the signal from 
the Emperor as to whether he would slay his foe. The 
signal was given by the spectators turning their thumbs 
down if they want death. It was the wounded man's 
privilege to ask for life, which he did by raising his finger 
in supplication. In most of these pictures we have the 
raised finger in entreaty. Some show that the prayer has 
been refused, and the sword of the victor is at the throat 
of the victim. In this amphitheatre the Christians were 




GLADIATORS IN THE ARENA, 



thrown to the lions, and the ashes still encumber the door 
through which the ghastly bodies of the slain were dragged 
after they had been "butchered to make a Roman holiday." 
It is in these remnants of Pompeiian splendor that we 
see cruelty of the old Koman life. We turn from it with 



188 GRANTS TOUR 

a feeling of relief, as it is not pleasing to think that such 
things ever were possible in a world as beautiful and re- 
fined as that surrounding Pompeii. We pass to happier 
scenes, glimpses of real life as it was 2,000 years ago. 
The value of these ruins is in the truthfulness of what we 
see around us. We tire of temples and fauns and shows. 
How did these people live ? We see that there was little 
or no poverty in Pompeii. If there was any Five Points 
or Seven Dials quarter, it has not been excavated. This 
was a happy summer town, where people came to find 
their pleasures. There was one house of unspeakable 
shame which the guide, with glistening eyes, pointed out 
to the General as the special object of interest to tourists. 
But our General had no interest in scenes of shame and 
vice and declined to enter the house. We sauntered about 
from street to street, and looked at the house called the 
house of the Tragic Poet. It is here that Bulwer Lytton 
places the home of Glaucus,in his "Last Days of Pompeii." 
We pass a lake house where the mills are ready to grind 
corn, and our guide explains how it was done in the ancient 
days — " Pretty much," the General remarks, " as it is 
done in primitive settlements now." Here is an arcade 
which was supposed to be a market. Here is a subterranean 
passage leading to a dungeon. In the roof was a hole, 
through which the judge announced to the prisoners their 
fate. We can fancy Christian myrtys clustering under 
these walls, and fearing not even the lions, in the blessed 
hope of that salvation whose gospel had only come from 
the shores of Galilee. We see ruined tombs and evidences 
of cremation, and house after house, streets and houses 
without end, until we become bewildered with the multi- 
tude and variety of sights. The imj)ression made by the 
journey may be summed up in a remark of General Grant, 
that Pompeii was one of the few things which had not 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



189 



disappointed his expectations ; tHat the truth was more 
striking than imagination had painted, and that it was 
worth a journey over the sea to see and study its stately, 
solemn ruins. 

The Italian authorities did General Grant special honor 
on his visit to Pompeii by directing that a house should 
be excavated. It is one of the special compliments paid 
to visitors of renown. The guide will show houses that 
have been excavated in the presence of Murat and his 




GLA.DIATORS FIGHTING WITH BEASTS. 



Queen, of General Championnet and Joseph II., of Ad- 
miral Farragut and General Sherman and General Sheridan. 
These houses are still known by the names of the illus- 
trious persons who witnessed their exhumation, and the 
guide hastens to point out to you, if you are an American, 
where honor was paid to our countrymen. When Sher- 
man and Sheridan were here, large crowds attended, and 
the occasion was made quite a picnic. But General Grant's 
visit was known only to a few, and so when the director 



12 



190 GRANTS TOUR 

of excavations led tlie way to the proposed work, there were 
the General and his party, and a group of our gallant and 
courteous friends from the Vandalia. The quarter selected 
was near the Forum. Chairs were arranged for the General, 
Mrs. Grant, and some of us, and there quietly, in a room 
that had known Pompeiian life seventeen centuries ago, 
we awaited the signal that was to dig up the ashes that had 
fallen from Vesuvius that terrible night in August. Our 
group was composed of- the General, his wife and son ; Mr. 
Duncan, the American Consul in Naples ; Commander 
Robeson, of the Vandalia ; Lieutenants Strong, Miller and 
Rush, of the same ship. We formed a groujD about the 
General while the director gave the workmen the signal. 
The spades dived into the ashes, while with eager eyes we 
looked on. What story would be revealed of that day of 
agony and death ! Perhaps a mother, almost in the 
fruition of a proud mother's hopes, lying in the calm re- 
pose of centuries, like the figure we had seen only an hour 
ago, dug from these very ruins. Perhaps a miser hurry- 
ing with his coin only to fall in his doorway, there to rest 
in peace while seventeen centuries of the mighty world 
rolled over him, and to end at last in a museum. Perhaps 
a soldier fallen at his post, or a reveller stricken at the 
feast. All these things have been given us from Pompeii, 
and we stood watching the nimble spades and the tumbling 
;ashes, watching with the greedy eyes of gamblers to see 
■what chance would send. Nothing came of any startling 
Import. There were two or three bronze ornaments, a 
loaf of bread wrapped in cloth, the grain of the bread and 
the fibre of the cloth as clearly marked as when this pro- 
bable remnant of a humble meal was put aside by the 
careful housewife's hands. Beyond this, and some frag- 
ments we could not understand, this was all that came 
from the excavation of Pompeii. The director was evi- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 191 

dently dissapointed. He expected a skeleton at the very 
least to come out of the cruel ashes and welcome our 
renowned guest who had come so many thousand miles to 
this Roman entertainment. He proposed to open another 
ruin, but one of the party, a very practical gentleman, 
remembered that it was cold and that he had been walking 
a good deal and was hungry, and when he proposed that, 
instead of excavating another ruin, we should " excavate 
a beefsteak " at the resturant near the gate of the sea, 
there was an approval. The General, who had been 
leisurely smoking his cigar and studying the scene with 
deep interest, quietly assented, and, thanking the director 
for his courtesy, said he would give him no more trouble. 
So the laborers shouldered their shovels and marched off 
to their dinner, and we formed in a straggling, slow pro- 
cession and marched down the street where Nero rode in 
triumph, and across the Forum, where Cicero may have 
thundered to listening thousands, and through the narrow 
streets, past the wine shops filled with jars which contain 
no wine ; past the baker's whose loaves are no longer in 
demand — past the thrifty merchant's, with his sign warning 
idlers away, a warning that has been well heeded by gen- 
erations of men — past the house of the Tragic Poet, whose 
measures no longer burden the multitudes, and down the 
smooth, slippery steps that once led through the gates 
opening to the sea — steps over which fishermen trailed 
their nets and soldiers marched in stern procession — into 
the doors of a very modern tavern. Pompeii was behind 
us and a smiling Italian waiter welcomed to wine and corn 
meat and bread, olives and oranges. Around his whole- 
some board we gathered and talked of the day and the 
many marvels we had seen. 

Having received visits from the Prefect and authorities 
of Naples, General Grant returned their visit on Thursday 



192 



GRANT'S TOUR 



the 19tli. As he left the Vandalia, the yards were manned 
and a salute fired, the salute being returned by the Italian 
admiral. General Grant then landed, and was met by the 
general commanding the district, who had a regiment of 
Bersaglieri drawn up in front of the Koyal Palace and re- 
yiewed by General Grant. Accompanied by the Italian 
officials he then visited the naval and military schools and 
the palace, after which he attended a reception at the house 
of Consul Duncan. During these visits General Grant 
was accompanied by his son, Commander Robeson, Lieu- 
tenants Rush and Miller and a splendid retinue of Italian 
officials. The whole tone of reception accorded him was 
cordial and stately. The General expressed himself with 
the greatest admiration of the Italian troops. Two days 
later the entire party sailed for Palermo. 




CHAPTEE XT. 

THE MEMOEIES OF PALEEMO WHAT THE GOVEENMENT 

WAS DOING HOPE FOE ITAEY AMONG THE ISLANDS 

OF THE MEDITEEEANEAN IMPEESSIONS OF SICILY 

FEOM PALERMO TO MALTA EN VOYAGE SCYLLA 

AND CHAHYBDIS THE DUKE OF EDINBUEGH's SA- 
LUTE SCENES AND INCIDENTS, 

The Vandalia, bearing General Grant and his party, 
reached Palermo, Sunday December 23d. A correspond- 
ent describes the city as follows : — 

Palermo is attractive enough, especially in its Christ- 
mas finery, but we are yearning for the South and sun- 
shine, I told you of our Christmas dinner and of the honor 
which we of the wardroom, in our modest way, paid to our 
illustrious guests. The next morning there were calls to 
make — official calls on consuls and generals and prefects 
and great people. This is one of the duties — I was nearly 
writing penalties — of our trip. The incognito of General 
Grant is one that no one will respect. He declines all 
honors and attentions, so far as he can do so without 
rudeness, and is especially indifferent to the parade and 
etiquette by which his journey is surrounded. It is amus- 
ing, knowing General Grant's feelings on this subject, to 
read the articles in English and home papers about his 
craving for precedence and his fear lest he may not have 
the proper seat at table and the highest number of guns. 
General Grant has declined every attention of an official 
character thus far, except those whose non-acceptance 
would have been misconstrued. When he arrives at a 
port his habit is to go ashore with his wife and son, see 

193 



194 GRANTS TOUR 

what is to be seen, and drift about from palace to picture 
gallery like any other wandering, studious American doing 
Euro]3e. Sometimes the officials are too prompt for him ; 
but generally, unless they call by appointment, they find 
the General absent. This matter is almost too trivial to 
write about ; but there is no better business for a chroni- 
cler than to correct wrong impressions before creating new 
ones. Here, for instance, is an editorial article from an 
American newspaper which has drifted into our wardroom 
over these Mediterranean seas. The journal is a respon- 
sible newspaper, with a wide circulation. It informs us 




€ 





PALEEMO. 



that General Grant travels with a princely retinue ; that 
he is enabled to do so because the men who fattened on the 
corruptions of his administration gave him a share of their 
plunder. He went to the Hotel Bristol in Paris. He 
took the Prince of Wales' apartments. He never asks the 
cost of his rooms at hotels, but throws money about with a 
lavish hand. These are the statements which one reads 



ARO UND THE WO R L D. 195 

here in the columns of an American journal. The truth 
is that General Grant travels, not like a prince, but as a 
private citizen. He has one servant and a courier. He 
never was in the Prince of Wales' apartments in the Hotel 
Bristol in his life. His courier arranges for his hotel ac- 
comodations, as couriers usually do, and the one who does 
this office for the General takes pains to make as good 
bargains for his master as possible. So far from General 
Grant being a rich man, I think I am not breaking confi- 
dence when I say that the duration of his trip will depend 
altogether upon his income, and his income depends alto- 
gether upon the proceeds of his investment of the money 
23resented to him at the close of the war. The Presidency 
yielded him nothing in the way of capital, and he has not 
now a dollar that came to him as an official. By this I 
mean that the money paid General Grant as a soldier and 
as a President was spent by him. in supporting the dignity 
of his office. Everybody knows how much money was 
given him at the close of the war. As this was all well 
invested and has grown, you may estimate the fortune of 
the General and about how long that fortune would enable 
him to travel like a prince or a Tammany exile over 
Europe. There are many people at home who do not like 
General Grant, who quarrel with his politics and think his 
administration a calamity. That is a matter of opinion. 
But his fame as a soldier is dear to every patriotic Ameri- 
can, and I am glad of the opportunity of brushing away 
one or two of the cobwebs of slander which I see growing 
over it. 

But this is a digression. I was thinking of Palermo in 
her holiday finery ; for the Christmas bells are in the air, 
and, as we walk from street to street, we see the South, 
the Catholic South, in every group. I can well imagine 
how this sunny, picturesque town might grow on one after 



196 



GRANT'S TOUR 



a time. Yet, to our prim, well-ordered northern eyes it is 
hard to become accustomed to the dirt and squalor of the 
town. This Sicily is the land of many civilizations. Here 
the Greek, the Carthagenian, the Koman and the Saracen 
have made their mark. This is the land of the poetry of 
Homer, the genius of Archimedes, the philosphy and piety 
of Paul. These hills and bays and valleys have seen 
mighty armies striving for the mastery of the world. Cer- 
tainly if example, or precept, or the opportunity for great 
deeds could ennoble a nation, Sicily should be the land of 




SICILIAN ROBBERS. 

heroes. But its heroism has fallen into rags, and the des- 
ceudants of the men who destroyed the Athenian fleet in 
Syracuse, and who confronted the power of Carthage at 
Agrigentum, now spend their time sleeping in the sun, 
hanging around chapel doors to beg, and hiding in the 
hills to waylay travelers and rob them or keep them for a 
ransom. Brigandage has for generations been the domi- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 197 

nant industry in the Sicilies. If I were to repeat all the 
stories of the banditti, I might tax your credulity. There 
is nothing that takes romantic dimensions so rapidly as 
stories of crime and adventure. But one of the gentlemen 
who called on General Grant yesterday is an English banker 
resident. A few months ago he went out of town with his 
brother to visit some mining property in which he was in- 
terested. When he reached the station and was quietly walk- 
ing through the town, two horsemen galloped up, leading 
a riderless horse. They had carbines over their shoulders. 
They stopped the banker and bade him mount. He ob- 
jected, and appealed to some fellow passengers for protec- 
tion. They shrugged their shoulders and told him that 
God's will had to be done, and he had better mount; these 
armed men were Leoni, the terrible brigand, and a lieuten- 
ant, who would murder any who interfered with him. So 
the banker was mounted and carried into the hills. He 
lived in a cave and was arrayed in brigand's costume. A 
messenger was sent to his family saying that unless 60,000 
francs were paid within a certain time, the banker would 
b3 slain. The money was paid, one-half by the govern- 
ment, the other by the family, and the banker came home 
after three weeks' life in the hills. All this happened 
within a few months, and the victim is as well known in 
Palermo as Mr. Belmont in New York, The capture 
was arranged on careful business principles. The bandit 
bribed a servant of the banker to inform him of his master's 
movements and took his measures accordingly. 

I allude to brigandage as a dominant industry. But it 
is due to the Italian Government to say that the authori- 
ties have done all in their power to suppress it. This 
brings me to another point — the manifest and gratifying 
advance that has been made in Sicily since the union of 
the Italian nation under Victor Emmanuel. I have no 



198 GRANTS TOUR 

doubt that there are many things about such a reign as 
that of the Bourbons to be regretted, especially by a so- 
ciety like that of Palermo. In the Bourbon days kings 
came here and lived in the palaces. Now the palaces are 
deserted. Occasionally a prince comes and there is a rip- 
ple of life, but as a general thing Palermo is no longer a 
royal, courtly town. I visited one or two of the houses of 
the King — houses which are untenanted unless by the 
royal servants. There was the chateau of La Favorita, 
for instance. We reached it by a long drive through the 
environs of the city, under range of Monte Pellegrino. 
This range is one of the attractions of the city. It is a 
gray limestone of early formation, which Goethe found 
"indescribably beautiful." To my mind it resembles the 
Palisades, opposite Yonkers, although there is more 
beauty, more grandeur in our brown Hudson hills. It was 
to a cavern here that St. Bosalia retired to live out her 
brief and holy life, and pilgrims go to the shrine where 
her statue lies carved in marble and covered with bridal 
robes. We drive along the base of the hills through 
avenues of orange and olive trees until we come to the 
chateau. Two or three liveried servants awaited us. The 
gates were closed. The avenues were untidy. There was 
no sign of life in the house, and yet the site was one of 
rare natural beauty. It was the work of Ferdinand IV., 
a mighty sovereign, who now rests with God. Ferdinand 
governed for as many years as George III. He was 
driven out by the French and brought back by the 
English, and after receiving from Murat many attentions 
when Murat was king, afterward shot the French hero as a 
revolutionist. Ferdinand belonged to the driftwood period 
of European politics, and had an uneasy time of it until 
Waterloo secured the tenure ot every desjDotism in 
Europe. This chateau is one of his works. It is a Chi- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 199 

nese building, with rooms in various styles of decoration — 
Turkish, Pompeiian and Chinese. The view from the ob- 
servatory, the bit of sea on the left sweeping through the 
hills, the majestic range of limestone in front, to the right 
the city, with the shipping in the harbor and the sea be- 
yond, embowered in groves of roses, and oranges, and 
lemons, and olives, made the spot one of the most attract- 
ive I have ever seen. Yet it is abandoned to a few 
servants. No royal persons come here. The grounds are 
closed, except to those who can obtain permission. I no- 
ticed this spirit of exclusion in other royal habitations, 
and it led to the wish that some radical Parliament would 
throw open the royal preserves to the people, whose money 
made them what they are and for whose pleasure they 
should be preserved. 

Yet the day of awakening has come even to this 
Bourbon nest of Sicily. It is seventeen years since Gari- 
baldi began here the mad errand which was to go into 
history as one of the most glorious of heroic deeds, for it 
was from Palermo that he marched with a handful of sol- 
diers and overthrew the Bourbons. Behind that handful 
of men was the spuit of Italian unity which seemed to 
break out with all the force, and fire, and splendor of one 
of her volcanoes. In that time great changes have come 
over* Sicily. I was told that for twenty-five years before 
the union of the kingdoms not a house had been built in 
Palermo. Now a mole has been thrown out into the bay. 
Walls and walks encompass the sea. Fine avenues have 
been laid out, and it was a gratification to an American 
and a sign of the new days that have come to pass to see 
that one of these avenues bore the venerated name of Lin- 
coln. There are beggars enough, as General Grant and 
his friends could testify, but the authorities are pursuing 
and repressing beggary. The brigands still infest the hills, 



200 GRANTS TOUR 

but they are severely handled when caught, and the regu- 
lar troops are fast making brigandage a crime and no 
longer a form of pohtical action. Much, very much, re- 
mains to be done in Sicily, and every step showed us mat- 
ters for regret and amendment. We tried to speculate upon 
what a firm, gifted Englishman or American would do 
with this island. But when we remembered what Sicily 
had been; that under the reign of the Bourbons the 
feudal spirit survived ; that the Church has held it in the 
darkest tyranny; that for ages no light has fallen upon its 
people; that they have been trained and coaxed and driven 
into, the deepest superstition and ignorance; when we re- 
membered this we forgave Sicily, even her bandits and her 
beggars, and rejoiced with her sons in the coming of the 
glorious day of freedom and light — recalling, as we did, 
the eloquent lament of Byron over Italy of the Bourbon 
days: — 

Italia 1 oh Italia ! thou who hast 

The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past, 

On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 

Leaving Palermo, the travelers sailed for Malta, where 
they arrived on the 28th. Says our correspondent: — 
It was not without a regret that we saw the anchors 
slowly release themselves from their cozy bed and the good 
ship swing from her moorings. The day was far spent, 
and the sun was throwing the mountain of Hamilcar in 
long, trailing shadows over the bay of the beautiftil Palermo. 
Beautiful Palermo — beautiful despite the dust and grime, 
the poverty and idleness, the weakness and crime of her 
people. Something, perhaps it was those Christmas bells, 
had won us to the place. Or perhaps it was the four 
American flags shining in the sunshine. Or perhaps it 
was the orange groves. Or perhaps it was the mountain 
which recalled the Palisades on the Hudson. Or perhaps 



AROUND THE WORLD. 203 

it was the romantic thought that in those hills and caverns 
banditti were in wait who would have welcomed any one of 
our party, more especially our silent captain, as a lucrative 
prize. Or perhaps we were thinking of Paul and his 
journeyings to Home, and the fact that the seas we were 
about to dare were the seas which had tossed the apostle 
about for so many days. Or perhaps it was memories of 
the Odyssey and the wanderings of Ulysses, and the know- 
ledge that we were soon to skirt the shores of the ^olian 
Islands, and to pass between Scylla and Charybdis. I can- 
not tell you what spell it was that gave Palermo its beauty, 
but we sat on the quarter deck and talked of these things 
— the romance, and the history, and the poetry of the 
place — w]iile every moment it was fading from sight. Our 
wandering Ulysses, in the silent comfort of an afternoon 
cigar, had many warnings of the syrens. Our Penelope 
was congratulating herself that she was daring the sea with 
her lord, and not at home wearing the willow. We read 
how Paul went to Malta and how Ulysses went on his 
travels and dug out of books all the legends of the place, 
and sat on the deck weaving the memories of the place into 
a garland, like idle people as we were, weaving flowers — 
in a wood. Beautiful Palermo faded into a deeper mist, 
and still, out of the mist, came those Christmas bells whose 
peals had been so much of a comfort the past few hours. 
I suppose, after all, it was these Christmas bells that gave 
Palermo its beauty. Every peal awoke an echo in our 
hearts, and every echo had a memory of home. We were 
far off on Mediterranean seas. We were in the lands of 
chivalry and fable. But our thoughts were in dear, far 
America, and some of us talked of children, and some of us 
of friends, and however the talk might drift into classic or 
Scriptural ground it always came back to home. The 
Christmas bells were pealing cheerily, telling that all 



204 GRANTS TOUR 

Palermo was in a holiday mood. The shadows grow longer 
and longer. The hills faded into clouds. Our city became 
a line on the horizon. The breeze caught our boat, and 
with steam and wind we ploughed through the waves. 
The shadows came — they always come, even in the Medi- 
terranean. And, as we stood and looked at the passing 
day the sunshine, wreathed in clouds, fell upon Palermo 
and lighted its domes and housetojDS like a transparency. 
By this time even the bells had died away, and all that we 
saw of Palermo was a fringe of distant homes, with the 
last rays of the sun bathing them with glory. 

So Palermo faded from us, and we took our leave of it, 
as the night came, and we sped on into the whispering sea. 
But with night came more clouds and winds, and, after we 
had supped, the sea arose, and we had a gale and rain. It 
would have been a trifle in the Atlantic, but we were bent on 
pleasure, and it was not pleasant to think of the mists and 
storms in the country of the Odyssey. I arose early in 
the morning to see Stromboli. This island has an obliging 
volcano, which never pauses in its entertainment. But 
when we came to Stromboli, although we were near enough 
to be under its shadow, there was only the rain. Captain 
Bobeson pointed it out to me and I fancied I saw it, but I 
am afraid it was only a cloud. If there was any danger 
of the sirens enchanting our Ulysses the weather saved 
him. All we saw of the islands was a mass in the mist. 
The night became angry and the day brought a heavy sea, 
and I could well understand the anxious look of the cap- 
tain when, about six in the morning, he came out of his 
cabin in his oilcloth coat and glass in hand. We were 
driving rapidly upon the Calabrian coasts, and there was 
a rock he desired to see. The rock had its place on the 
chart as the signpost showing the way into the Straits of 
Messina. But it had a far more important place in our 



AROUND THE WORLD. 205 

imagination, for it was the rock of Scylla, and the straits 
into which we were entering were the straits tormented by 
the whirlpool of Charybdis. ^ 

We passed the rock of Scylla about eight in the 
morning. It was an ordinary rock, not very large or im- 
posing. As for Charybdis, if such a whirlpool existed, its 
turmoil is over, for we ploughed through the waves un- 
disturbed by its emotion. This part of our trip was through 
the Straits of Messina. The straits are narrow, not much 
wider than the Hudson opposite New York, and as we 
sailed through we had a fine view of one of the most 
beautiful prospects in Europe. On one side was Sicily, on 
the other Calabria. We passed Messina — now a city of 
70,000 people — her domes white and shining in the sun- 
shine. Messina has suffered from conquerors since the 
days of Haiinibal, from the plague and from earthquakes. 
It was early in 1783 that the earthquake threw down the 
campanile and transept of her cathedral. Passing Messina 
we next saw on the Italian coast the town of Reggio, now 
a flourishing settlement of 16,000 souls. Keggio has had 
its own troubles with earthquakes and in 1783 was almost 
destroyed. It was here that Garibaldi landed when crossed 
from Sicily. It was also in the hills behind Keggio — those 
dark brown hills that we see clearly in the morning sun — 
that he made his fatal fight of Aspromonte and was 
wounded and taken prisoner by Pallavicini in 1862, the 
same General Pallavicini who was so polite to General 
Grant the other day in Naples, when he marched his 
troo23s in review before us. Keggio, however, has a deeper 
interest to us than even attaches to the fame and fortunes of 
the illustrious Garibaldi. It is the Khegium of the New 
Testament. " And landing at Syracuse," saith the Gospel, 
" we tarried there three days. And from thence we fetched 
a compass and came to Khegium." Passing Keggio we 



206 GRANT'S TOUR 

soon saw on our riglit the majestic mountain of ^Etna. All 
day it remained with us — the snow covering its summit — 
thirty miles away, but so yast and high that it seemed only 
a mile or two. ^tna is a quiet volcano, or at least we 
could see nothing but a cloudless sky above it. It looks 
more like a table-land than a mountain. This is because 
of its size. The mountain is 10,870 feet high, but the 
crater is a chasm two or three miles wide and the circum- 
ference of its base is more than a hundred miles. It is not 
an unreasonable volcano as volcanos go, not breaking forth 
more than once every ten years. The last demonstration 
was in August, 1874. When the sun went down Etna 
was still watching us. The sea was high, and our course 
was directly south to the famous island of Malta. 

We arrived at Malta about one in the afternoon. The 
gale continued to be severe. We thought of the ancient 
times when Paul was thrown on the islands. You will find 
the story in the two last chapters of the Acts of the 
Apostles. How Paul was fourteen days driven up and 
down in Adria ; how the apostle bade the centurions and 
soldiers be of good cheer and, stand by the ship ; how the 
angel of God appeared to Paul, and told him to have no 
fear ; how the ship, with its 276 souls, was cast on the 
rocks ; how they came to a place where two seas met and 
" when they were escaped, then they knew the island was 
called Malta." You wiU remember also they were a 
barbarous people, who were kind and kindled a fire, and 
how the viper came out of the fire and hung upon Paul's 
hand. You will remember also that Paul shook the viper, 
which is a wise thing to do with venomous beasts, and that 
the people were amazed because Paul did not swell and 
fall dead, and "said he was a god," and treated him 
courteously and honored him with many honors, and on 
his departure laded him with such things as were necessary. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



207 



If there were no other historical attractions in Malta 
but what is thus written in the New Testament it would 
be well worth a visit. But Malta now, one of the strong- 
holds of the British Empire, one of the citadels on her 
Indian highway, has had more than her share of the 
mutations of human fortune. It is supposed to have been 




J- rimmnii'i 
RUINS AT MALTA. 



the Island of Ogygia, where Homer gave a home to 
Caly^Dso. It fell in the hard hands of the Carthagenians. 
Then the Bomans came and threw it into their empire. 
Then came the Vandals, the Goths and Arabs in fierce 
succession. Afterward came the unique dominion of the 
Knights of St. John, who came from Bhodes when the 
Turks pulled down the cross. In 1800 Napoleon, then on 
his way to Egypt, took the Island ; but in 1802 it came 
into the hands of the English, who have made it as strong 
as Gibraltar; strong enough to be regarded as impregnable. 
We had made fast to our anchorage and had fired the 



208 GRANT'S TOUR 

salute of twenty-one guns, by which a vessel of war does 
honor to a foreign port, when an officer reported to General 
Grant that the Duke of Edinburgh was coming on board. 
The ship next to the Vandalia was the Sultan, a noble 
English iron-clad under the command of His Koyal 
Highness. The General was standing on the deck study- 
ing the town when the captain's boat of the Sultan, with 
the Duke steering, whirled around the stern. His Royal 
Highness was received at the gang-way by Captain Robe- 
son. He was dressed in his uniform as captain, wearing 
on his breast the star of the Garter. The General advanced 
and greeted the Duke, and presented the gentlemen with 
him, and they retired to the cabin. They remained in 
conversation for the best part of an hour, talking about 
Malta, its antiquities, its history, England, education, the 
Eastern question, the weather and Besika Bay. His 
Royal Highness said he had orders to sail, and supposed 
his destination was Smyrna. He had had his time at 
Besika Bay and did not regard the return with any en- 
thusiasm. He spoke of the visit of his brother-in-law, the 
Grand Duke Alexis, to America, and of the gratification 
of the family at the reception by our people. The Duke 
is the pattern of a sailor, and has all the ease and off-hand 
grace of his family. On taking his leave his Royal 
Highness asked the General and family to visit him at his 
palace of San Antonio and take luncheon. The palace of 
San Antonio is about four miles from the town. It is sur- 
rounded by orange groves and walls, and is noted as the 
only large garden on the island. The drive was through 
an uninteresting, glaring country, the perpetual glare almost 
dimming our eyes. When we reached the palace, the Duke 
and Duchess received General and Mrs. Grant and their 
son in the most gracious manner. After luncheon His 
Royal Highness escorted them through the orange groves. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 209 

At noon General Grant visited the Governor General of 
Malta. On leaving the General was saluted with twenty- 
one guns. A regiment was drawn up in front of the palace 
as a guard of honor. The Governor, a famous old English 
General, Van Straubeuzee, wore the Order of the Grand 
Cross of the Bath. He received the General and party at 
the door of the palace surrounded by his council and a 
group of Maltese noblemen. After presentation to Lady 
Van Straubeuzee the same ceremonies were repeated. In 
the evening there was a state dinner to the General and 
party at the palace, including among the guests Commander 
Robeson and Lieutenant Commander Caldwell, of the 
Vandalia, as well as the Captain and executive officer of 
the Gettysburg. At the dinner General Grant's health 
was proposed, which was responded to in the heartiest 
manner. We all then went to the opera, and on the 
entrance of the General, the company sang the " Star- 
Spangled Banner," Miss Wheelock, of Boston, singing the 
air. The cheering was enthusiastic and the reception of 
the General cordial in the last degree. 

On the following day a visit was paid to the Duke of 
Edinburgh's ship, the Sultan, and a very pleasant season 
passed. On Monday, the 31st, the party sailed for Alex- 
andria. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

HOSPITALITIES I?f MALTA THE ENGLISH BANDS PLAY 

AMERICAN AIRS "THE MARQUIS " A LITTLE GALE 

—SUNSHINE AND LAND WARM WELCOME AT ALEX- 
ANDRIA GRANT MEETS STANLEY FROM ALEXANDRIA 

TO CAIRO THE KHEDIVE RECEIVES GENERAL GRANT 

THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE CONSUL-GENERAL. 

There were many temptations, writes Mr. Young, to 
remain in Malta. Hospitalities showered upon us. All 
the great ones of the place, beginning with His Royal 
Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, vied Avith one another 
in making our visit a pleasant one. I think if our mail 
had been ordered to Malta instead of Alexandria, we 
should have remained anyhow. At the last moment there 
was a disposition to stay, but the General had taken his 
leave and sent his cards, and he is not a^Dt to change his 
mind. In the morning of the last day of the year, he 
pushed ashore and roamed about an hour or two through 
the quaint streets of the strange, old town. I have called 
the town Malta, but it is really named Valletta, after John 
de la Valette, who was Grand Master of the Order of St. 
John, and built the town in the middle part of the six- 
teenth century. The knights held Malta for nearly two 
hundred and fifty years, and remained until the French 
and then the English drove them out. The people have a 
peculiar dialect, based on the Arabic, with plenty of 
Italian, French and English thrown in. The prevailing 
industry seems to be following officers and strangers around 
all day and begging. The town has many beautiful 
views, and I could see very easily how life might be toler- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



211 



ated here for tlie warm, genial air. It was the last day of 
the year when we pushed out into the bay and turned our 
prow toward the Mediterranean. There was quite a group 
of officers on deck surrounding the General and his party. 
As we neared the Sultan the band played our national 
airs, winding u]3 with "Auld Lang Syne." We exchanged 
greetings with them, and with our compatriots of the 




HOUSETOP AND BATTLEMENTS AT MALTA. . 

Gettysburg, who had gathered on the quarterdeck to say 
goodby. So our last remembrance of Malta is the music 
that came from the Sultan, the hurrah that came from the 
Gettysburg and the lowering of one solitary flag, far up 
the cliff, which indicated that our consular agent was on 
the watch and was bidding us good speed. 

Our General fell into his sea life quite readily. He 
.'teemed to welcome the sea with the rapture of a boy going 
home for a holiday. I can well imagine what a holiday it 
must be to one w^ho has done in sixteen years the work 



1 



212 GRANTS TOUR 

imjDOsed upon General Grant. He is not an early riser, 
but keeps up the American custom of a breakfast at ten. 
After breakfast tie takes up a newspaper, if he can find 
one, and a cigar. My friend, Mark Twain, will be glad 
to know that the General read with delight and apprecia- 
tion his " Innocents Abroad." In Naples one of us dis- 
covered an English version of the "Nasby Papers," which 
was a boon. About noon, if the weather is calm, the 
General comes on deck and converses, or studies the sea 
and the scenery. Dinner comes at six o'clock, and after 
dinner there is talk. When the General is in the mood, 
or when some subject arises which interests him, he is not 
only a good, but a remarkably good talker. His manner 
is clear and terse. He narrates a story as clearly as he 
would demonstrate a problem in geometry. His mind is 
singularly accurate and perspicacious. He has few, very 
few, resentments, and this was a surprising feature, re- 
membering the battles, civil and military, in which he has 
been engaged. I have heard him refer to most of the 
men, civil and military, who have flourished with him, 
and there is only one about whom I have seen him 
show feeling. But it was feeling like that of the 
farmer in the schoolbook who saw the viper which he had 
warmed to life about to sting him. I do not mention names, 
because I have no wish to excite controversies, such, for in- 
stance, as the controversy over Sumner. I will only allude 
to the Sumner business so far as to say that I think General 
Grant has been rather severely used in the matter. I have 
never heard General Grant speak with bitterness of Mr. 
Sumner. He told his story of the removal of Mr. Motley, 
and only told it, if I may quote his own words, when he had 
been charged by the friends of Mr. Sumner with having 
killed Mr. Motley. It seems to me that if history is to be 
written both sides should be heard, and in a transaction 



AROUND THE WORLD. 213 

in which General Grant bore a conspicuous part, he is cer- 
tainly entitled to be heard as a witness. As I have said, I 
kave never heard General Grant speak with bitterness of 
Mr. Sumner, which leads me to repeat the observation I 
made a moment or two ago — that he shows no resentment. 
I had known General Grant fairly well before I became 
the companion of his travels, and had formed my own 
opinion of his services and character. A closer relation 
strengthens that opinion. The impression that the General 
makes upon you is, that he has immense resources in re- 
serve. He has in eminent degree that "two o'clock in the 
morning courage," which Napoleon said he alone possessed 
among his marshals and generals. You are also impressed 
with his good feeling and magnanimity in speaking of 
comrades and rivals in the war. In some cases — especially 
in the cases of Sherman and Sheridan, MacPherson and 
Lincoln — it becomes an enthusiasm quite beautiful to wit- 
ness. Cadet days are a favorite theme of conversation, 
and after cadet life the events of the war. I wish I could 
dare to send you some of these conversations, some of the 
General's estimates of men and narratives of events. But 
for the present the very nature of my mission forbids it. 
Among our company is a gentleman who attends the 
General as a courier or secretary in foreign tongues. I 
call our friend "secretary" because the title is the one of 
his own choosing. His name is Jacques Hartog, native of 
Holland, educated in Paris and citizen of the world. We 
call him the " Marquis." The title expresses Mr. Hartog's 
address and accomplishments, and I am proud to publish 
the renown that the Vandalia mess has conferred upon 
him. He has an aristocratic air, and it is almost like a 
breeze from land — a breeze from the Sicilian shores laden 
with the odor of the orange blossoms — to see the Marquis 
come to breakfast in the wardroom, with the sea rolling 



214 GRANT'S TOUR 

heavily, having passed a bad night. We are all fuzzy and 
ragged ; we have taken refiige in flannels and old clothes ; 
we have that uneasy feeling which verges on illness. The 
Marquis comes with the manner of a lord of the ante- 
chamber in the days of Louis Quatorze. Every hair is in 
its place, the curl is posed on the brow, the face is clean as 
a j)archment, the full, brown moustache has the faintest 
suspicio]\ of brillantine, the scarf-pin is adjusted. There is 
not a crease in his garments. If the Marquis were a good 
sailor there would be no sjDecial merit in this, but our noble 
friend is a bad sailor and hates the sea, every motion of 
the ship being a misery to him. For a nobleman in the 
agonies of seasickness, of a constant seasickness, to array 
himself as though he were about to promenade the Champs 
Elysees, shows a power of self-control which is worthy of 
admiration. He speaks seven or eight tongues and knows 
every hotel m Europe. A more polite, amiable and 
obliging courier it would be hard to find, and although he 
has been induced to contribute in many unconscious ways 
to our amusement in the mess, every one has a sincere 
respect for the Marquis and the kindliest wishes for his 
prosperity. 

The late Lord Derby is reported to have said that a 
man who would say he liked dry champagne would say 
anything. I thought to-night, as I felt my way along the 
deck from the General's cabin, that a man who would say 
he liked the sea would say anything. The night was cold. 
The rain was falling and making about in pools. The wind 
was ahead and the good old ship every moment wriggled 
and trembled as she thrust her head in the sea. 
Officers, in weird costumes of oilcloth and gutta percha, 
were moving about looking at the sky and the rigging, 
and the barometer and the canvas. Hadden was walking 
the bridge with his trumpet, like an uneasy spirit, staring 



AROUND THE WORLD. 217 

into the niglit. There was the night before us, around us, 
beneath us — not a star in the sky, only heavy, angry 
clouds. Every now and then the sea came with a tug and 
whu'l, and sometimes forced its way over the bow. Far up 
on the yards were the lights to warn other ships of our 
coming. There, perched in the rigging, was a dripping 
Jack Tar, staring into the night ; now and then a call is 
heard — a call in some dialect unknown to me, which is 
answered from the bridge. But on the forecastle one of 
my fair, peach-faced young friends in the steerage, a mid- 
shipman, keeps his dripping watch, staring into the night. 
On the quarterdeck my old friend, the quartermaster, with 
his gray head and grave face, holds watch and ward, 
staring into the night. Somehow I have great confidence 
in the quartermaster, and feel safe when I see him on 
deck. There is something so respectable and fatherly 
about this quartermaster, that you instinctively depend 
upon him in a storm. In the wardroom some of the 
officers are writing, others are trying to read. As we 
come from the deck there is a run of comments and criti- 
cisms in that fresh Saxon sailor method of speech which 
breathes of the sea. The night is very dark, relieved 
only by the phosphorescent flashes of the Avaves . and a 
burst of lightning, which illumines the horizon toward 
Sicily and Crete. The captain comes out and looks into 
the night, and visits the chart room and the binnacle, and 
goes up to the bridge to talk with Hadden and stare into 
the night. I suppose the oracle has given him some 
response, for he returns to the cabin. The General is 
quite cheerful over his zeal and success as a sailor, and is 
disposed to vaunt his seamanshi23 when one of us proposes 
to go to bed to prevent further uneasiness. The lady of 
our ship has been unable to leave her cabin on account of 
the storm, although all reports concur in saying that she 



218 GRANT'S TOUR 

proves to be an admirable sailor. The captain overrules 
one of her suggestions — tbat we should come to an anchor 
— by the statement that it would do no good, and the 
General vetoes another suggestion — that we should return 
to Malta — by the argument that we are as near to Alex- 
andria as to Malta, and nothing would be gained by 
returning. The good shijD strains and twists, and keeps on 
in her course. 

The chief engineer, who is an amiable man and never 
complains, now finds fault with the water for coming into 
the cabin. You see it has been coming in for an hour, 
and when the boys have finished swabbing I suppose it 
will come in again. I repeat that, to paraphrase Lord 
Derby's words, "A man who would say he liked the sea, 
would say anything." I am looking at my cot, which 
swings over my head as I write. I wonder if I am really 
going to climb into it to-night without coming out on the 
other side, and in among the pitchers and charts in Lieu- 
tenant Strong's room. I wonder if the rain will come 
through the blankets as it did last night. I wonder if the 
cot in the midnight watches will begin a series of batter- 
ing-ram assaults on the dining table, as it did the night 
before, assaults which were only terminated by the engi- 
neering skill of Mr. Damenhorser. Well, we might as 
well be cheerful about it. I try and find a light side to 
it, although Mr. Caldwell makes the profound observation 
that nothing could be worse than a ship when it rains. 
Caldwell, as an executive officer, is in an exceedingly 
cheerful mood to-night, arising from the fact that he has 
a good deal to do. Well, I would much rather have him 
command the ship than myself, my disposition being to 
vote for Mrs. Grant's proposition to bring the shijD to 
anchor. But since I am not in command, and since the 
ship will go en like a fate, right on to the shores of Phoe- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 219 

nicia, 1 try and kill an hour by writing this paragraph 
and giving you a sketch of one of our evenings at sea. 

I suppose there must be a fascination in this life, if we 
could only see it. I still think to repeat, that, a man who 
would say he liked the sea would say anything. In this 
opinion I am sustained by my noble friend, the Marquis. 
That gentleman informed us all this morning that the 
English were all fools (fools emphatically expressed) for 
keeping yachts, and that if he had $1,000,000 a year he 
would never keep a yacht. But my noble friend was in 
deep depression of spirits at the time. He had been lying 
all the afternoon in a corner on the lower deck, near the 
engine, disturbed by the noise of the machinery and the 
smell of the oil. He had tried to dine, and no one knows 
better the philosophy of dinner, but he retreated with the 
soup. A man — even a man with the naturally broad and 
generous mind of the Marquis — would be apt to take a 
dismal view of yachtuig. If I were sure there was no rain 
in my cot I might find reasons for owning a yacht. But 
rain in one's cot and an unruly sea outside and water 
oozing along the cabin floors and a general feeling of 
inexpressible discomfort, the feeling that you know where 
you are now, but you are not sure about the minute after 
next, these are incidents tending to dampen the enthusiasm 
of any man — of any man in this ship unless it is Caldwell, 
who, as I remarked, has never been so happy and cheerfiil 
as since the storm came. I knew when he came down 
stairs five minutes ago, all wreathed in smiles, that the 
barometer was going down, and that his heart was leaping 
with the thought that he might be on the bridge all night 
battling with the winds. If I must go to sea I want a 
calm sea. I never saw one too calm for my nerves, not 
even on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. I like sunshine, 
and when I was in Naples found reasons for envying the 



220 GRANT'S TOUR 

poor, ragged beggars who had gorged themselves with 
maccaroni and were sleeping in the sun. I like to sleep 
in a bed which does not swing like a pendulum, and into 
which the rain does not fall. I like a hansom cab. I felt 
like saying to General Graut the other evening, when he 
was talking about some of his generals, that if I could only- 
command an army in a hansom cab, I would do wonders. 
I do not like rain, or cold, or tumbling seas. One of the 
reasons which made me welcome this trip was the certainty 
that I would pass from the fogs of London into the 
enrapturing sunshine of France and Italy. Well, I have 
not found the sunshine yet, as I said to myself in an 
ironical mood, when I found myself rowing ashore in 
tropical Malta wearing a heavy English ulster. I wonder 
if I will find it in Egypt, toward which we are driving, 
driving, driving through the cold, unrelenting rain. 

I am afraid I shall do the Mediterranean an in- 
justice if I leave the impression that it is always 
an ugly sea. When I wrote the last paragragh, I, 
had just come in from the rain. . But this morning 
the rain has gone, and our sea is as gentle as a mill 
pond, and we begin to rejoice in sun and cloudless 
skies. The old ship brightens up like a spring morning, 
and the deck swarms with sailors putting everything in 
order. Give me a man-of-war for putting everything in 
order. There is no end to the washing, the scrubbing, 
the cleaning of brass. In a short time the traces of the 
storm are removed and we have quarters. The marine 
guard comes ,to its post — every man as fresh as a new pin 
— and as Captain Fagan carefully inspects the line, our 
General notes that the line is well kept and the men in 
good discipline. The sailors at their guns, the engineers 
at their quarters, every man at his post, the inspection 
goes on, and reports are made. One or two poor fellows 



i 



AROUND THE WORLD. 223 

who jumped over and swam ashore in Malta, and were 
taken are now "in the brig," and the lady of our ship has 
been using her influence to have their punishment lessened 
' — it being the holiday season, and so on. I do not like 
to ask whether she has succeeded or not, for, as you will 
see, it is really none of my business. But I have great 
confidence in the persuasive powers of Mrs. Grant, and I 
only allude to this incident because it gives me an excuse 
for referring to her generous and thoughtful character, to 
that never-failing kindness and amiability which go so far 
to enhance the pleasure of our trip. As you stand on the 
quarterdeck and see the well ordered movements of the 
ship ; the men in uniform going from place to place ; the 
calls, the commands ; the great menacing guns crouching 
under the ports ; as you watch the always changing novelty 
of a man-of-war's duties, and feel the soft, warm air coming 
over the calmest of summer seas, you begin to feel that 
there is some attraction in a sailor's career. You see we 
are all on the sharp lookout this morning, for Strong has 
just been to the chart room, and announces that land may 
be seen at any time. Strong is the navigatmg officer, and 
I sometimes fear he has sold himself to the common enemy 
of mankind, or how else could he prophesy to the minute 
when we shall see certain rocks and lights. Why should 
he sit up all hours of the night figuring, figuring huge 
columns of figiires, unless— well, I will not venture my 
suspicions. He has told us this morning that we may see 
land at any moment, and we all believe in Strong, and 
look steadily at the horizon now fringed with a shining 
mist. How glorious the sea is when her majesty is in re- 
pose ! Under the forecastle is a group of young officers, 
and we hear sounds of laughter. The Marquis is out in 
full force, and is entertaining our friends with anecdotes 
of high life in Paris and renderings, recitative and musi- 



224 



GRANT'S TOUR 



cal, from the operas of M. Offenbach. The fringe of 
shining mist assumes a form — a low, white beach, and , as 
we look closer, tapering lines and towers. We know, then, 
that the coast before us is really Egypt — ^the land of im- 
agination and fable — and that these tapering lines and 
towers are the minarets of Islam. It is not long before we 
come inside the port of Alexandria, and before our engines 
are stopped we hear the cheers from the ships and the 
Egyptian bands playing our national airs. These dear old 
strains were the last we heard at Malta and the first we 
hear at the Nile. You see the protecting telegraph has 
hovered over us and friends knew of our coming, and be- 
fore this letter reaches the shore it must pass through the 
smoke of the cannon now about to thunder Egypt's wel- 
come to General Grant. 




ALEXANDRIA. 



On the 5th of January the party reached Alexandria. 
The writer continues: — Our reception was most enthusi- 
astic. The Vandalia had hardly anchored when the 
Governor of the district, the admiral and the generals, 
pachas and beys, the Consul General, Mr. Farman; the 



AR O UND THE WO RLD . 225 

Vice-Consul, Mr. Salvage; Judges Bamnger and Morgan, 
and the missionaries all came on board. The reception 
lasted an hour, and as each officer was saluted according to 
his rank, and the salutes were returned, there was smoke 
enough in the air for a naval engagement, and we could 
almost fancy another battle of the Nile like that fought, 
only a step or two up the coast, one eventful day nearly 
eighty years ago. The Governor, in the name of the 
Khedive, welcomed General Grant to Egypt, and offered 
him a palace in Cairo and a special steamer up the Nile. 
It is Oriental etiquette to return calls as soon as ]30ssible, 
and accordingly in the afternoon the General, accomjDanied 
by his son, Commander Robeson, Chief Engineer Trillay 
and Lieutenant Handy, of the navy, landed in the official 
barge. As this was an official visit, the Vandalia manned 
the yards and fired twenty-one guns. These salutes were 
responded to by the Egyptian vessels. A guard of honor 
received the General at the palace, and the reception was 
after the manner of the Orientals. We enter a spacious 
chamber and are seated on a cushioned seat or divan, ac- 
cording to rank. The Pacha — who has a Greek face and, 
I presume, is a Greek — offers the company cigarettes. 
Then compliments are exchanged, the Pacha saying how 
proud Egypt is to see the illustrious stranger, and the 
General answering that he anticipates great pleasure in 
visiting Egypt. The Pacha gives a signal, and servants 
enter bearing little porcelain cups about as large as an egg, 
in filagree cases. This is the beverage — coffee — or, as was 
the case with this S23ecial pacha, a hot drink spiced with 
cinnamon. Then the conversation continues with judi- 
cious pauses, the Orientals being slow in speech and our 
General not apt to diffuse his opinions. In about five 
minutes we arise and file down stairs in slow, solemn fash- 
ion, servants and guards saluting, and the visit is over. 



226 GRANTS TOUR 

The General and Mrs. Grant went to dine, and in tlie 
evening we had a ball and a dinner at the house of our 
Vice-Consul, Mr. Salvage. This was an exceedingly bril- 
liant entertainment, and interesting in one respect, 
especially because it was here that the General met my 
renowned friend and colleague, Henry M. Stanley, just 
fresh from the African wilderness. The General had heard 
of Stanley's being in town, and had charged me to seek 
him out and ask him to come on board and dine. 
My letter missed Stanley, and we met at the Con- 
sul's. Stanley sat on the right of the General, and 
they had a long conversation upon African matters and the 
practical results of the work done by our intrepid friend. 
The Consul General proposed the health of General Grant, 
and Judge Barringer projDOsed that of Mrs. Grant, who, 
by the way, was prevented by fatigue from coming. Then 
a toast was proposed in honor of Stanley, who made a 
grateful response, saying it was one of the proudest 
moments in his life to find himself seated by our guest. 
Stanley looks quite gray and somewhat thinner than when 
I saw him in New York, just before his departure, three 
years ago. I gave him all the news I could remember 
about friends in New York and elsewhere. Next morning 
Mr. Farman, our Consul-General, and myself, saw him on 
board the Brindisi steamer, which was to carry him to 
Europe — to new honors and the enjoyment of a well earned 
and enviable renown. The entertainment at Mr. Salvage's 
at an end, we returned on board. The next day was Sun- 
day. The General, accompanied by a friend, landed, 
meaning to stroll about the town. Walking is one of the 
General's occupations, and he never sees a town until he 
has gone ashore and lost himself. His eye for topograjohy 
is remarkable ; but that is a military quality, after all, and 
in Alexandria,- one of the most huddled up and bewildering 



AROUND THE WORLD. 227 

towns, lie liad a fine opportunity for the exercise of his 
skill. We strolled as far as Cleopatra's Needle, which is 
said to be going to New York. Then there was an in- 
formal luncheon, as became the Sabbath, with Mr. Gibbs, 
the director of the telegraph, Commander Robeson and 
Lieutenant Commander Caldwell forming the other mem- 
bers of the party. The event of Monday was that we 
formed a group on the quarterdeck and had our photo- 
graphs taken, the General and family in the the centre, 
and around them the wardroom, steerage and warrant 
officers of the Vandalia. 

This event closed our life on the Vandalia for a month 
at least. It was only axi revoir and not good- by, but there 
was just enough of the feeling of parting to give a tinge of 
sadness to the mass of trunks and bundles, which the sail- 
ors, under the orders of the Marquis, were arranging on 
deck. We were to do Cairo and the Nile, we were to be 
gone three weeks, and were to return. But the only one 
of the party who really wanted to leave was our noble 
friend, the Marquis, whose spirits have been steadily rising 
since he came to land and heard the rumor of the Khe- 
dive's hospitality. As he takes command of the baggage 
and directs the sailors in their handling of it, you see in his 
eye the enthusiasm of one born to command when in his 
own element. When he pushes off in the tug, trailing the 
luggage in a boat behind him, there is a disposition to fire 
a salute, but the regulations are not elastic, and the 
I\Iarquis, with his important command, has only a silent 
adieu. We are not long in following him. We have a 
special train at our cojnmand, and the captain and a group 
of the officers are going up to attend the presentation to 
the Khedive. The Governor of the province, with his 
retinue, met the General, and at eleven the train, a special 
one, started. Judge Barringer and wife were of the 

14 



228 GRANTS TOUR 

company, and the run to Cairo was made in four hours. 
The General studied the scenery closely and noted the 
resemblance in some portions to prairie land in Illinois. 
Mrs. Grant was more impressed with the poetry of the 
scene — with the biblical associations that cluster about this 
strange land. The officers formed a merry company in 
their compartments, while the Marquis was in an advance 
section, holding guard over a lunch basket. The Marquis 
is a great admirer of the Khedive, and expresses himself 
earnestly in favor of a government which welcomes its 
guests to a palace. He takes no interest in the ruins, 
believing Cairo to be more interesting because of the cafes, 
which remind him of Paris, than the Pyramids, which 
he regards as entirely useless. At three o'clock we come 
to Cairo. There is a guard, a carpet-way, and a group of 
officers and civilians. The General, looking at the group, 
recognizes old friends. " Why," he says, " there's Loring, 
whom I have not seen for thirty years ; " and " There's 
Stone, who must have been dyeing his hair to make it so 
white." The cars stop and General Stone enters, present- 
ing the representative of the Khedive. This officer 
extends the welcome of His Highness, which General 
Grant accepts with thanks. General Loring comes in and 
receives a hearty greeting from his old friend in early days 
and his enemy during the war. General Stone and Gen- 
eral Grant w^ere at West Point, and are old friends, and 
their meeting is quite enthusiastic. The General asks 
General Loring to ride with him, while General Stone 
accompanies Mrs. Grant, and so we drive off to the Palace 
of Kassrel-Doussa — the palace placed at General Grant's 
disposal by the Khedive. Commander Robeson and 
Lieutenant Rush accept the General's invitation to reside 
in the palace while they are in Cairo, and the remainder 
of the party find homes in the hotel. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 229 

The General dined quietly witli his family, and next 
day called on the Khedive. The hour fixed for the re- 
ception was eleven, and a few minutes before that hour 
the state carriages called at the palace. The General 
wore a plain evening dress, and was accompanied by the 
following officers: — Commander H. B. Robeson, comman- 
ding the Vandalia; Joseph Trilley, chief engineer ; George 
H. Cooke, surgeon; Lieutenant E. T. Strong, Lieutenant 
J. W. Miller, Paymaster J. P. Loomis ; G. W. Baird, en- 
gineer; H.L. Hoskinson, ensign; B. F. Walling and E. S. 
Hotchkin, midshipmen ; E. R. Freeman, engineer. Jesse 
R. Grant and Consul-General Farman accompanied the 
General. We reached the palace shortly after eleven. 
There was a guard of honor, and the officers of the house- 
hold were ranged on the stairs. The General entered 
and was met by His Highness, the Khedive, at the foot of 
the stairs. The General, his son, and Mr. Farman went 
into an inner room, where the ceremonies of the formal 
presentation took place. The officers then entered and 
were received by His Highness, who expressed his 
gratification at seeing so many representatives of the navy. 
This reception lasted about half an hour, the Khedive 
showing the General the pictures on his walls painted in 
commemoration of the opening of the Suez Canal. We 
then returned to the palace. We had scarcely entered 
when the carriage of the Khedive was announced. The 
General received the Khedive, who was accompanied by 
his Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and welcomed him in 
the grand saloon, where Mrs. Grant also received His 
Highness. The officers of the Vandalia were present, 
and their striking uniforms, picturesque costume of the 
Khedive and hi& attendants, and the splendid, stately 
decorations of the room in which they assembled, made 
the group imposing. In the course of this conversation 



230 ^ GRANT'S TOUR 

General Grant spoke of General Stone, now chief of staff 
to the Khedive. He said he had known General Stone 
from boyhood, and did not think he had a superior in our 
army ; that he was a loyal and able man, and he was 
pleased to see him holding so important a command. The 
Khedive said he was very much pleased with General Stone ; 
that he found him a most useful, and a most able, man, 
especially fitted to organize troops, and had made him a 
member of his privy council. At the close of the inter- 
view, General Grant escorted the Khedive to his carriage ; 
official calls were then made upon the two sons of the 
Khedive, who at once returned the calls, and so ended our 
official duties. 

Judge Batcheller, the American member of the Inter- 
nationl , Tribunal, gave General and Mrs. Grant a recep- 
tion and a dance, which was a most attractive affair. The 
Khedive intended to give the General a dinner and recep- 
tion, but the death of the King of Italy threw his court into 
mourning, and this dinner will take place after our return 
from the Nile. The Consul-General, E E. Farman, gave 
a dinner at the New Hotel. The guests are General Grant, 
Mrs. Grant, Jesse H. Grant, Judge and Mrs. Barringer, 
Judge and Mrs. Batcheller, M. Comanos and Mme. Comanos, 
General Charles P. Stone, Mrs. Stone, and Miss Stone, 
General Loring, Colonel Dye, Mme. Colestone, Colonel 
Graves, Colonel Mitchell, Kev. Dr. Lansing and Mrs. 
Lansing, M. and Mme. de Ortega Morejon, Judge and 
Mme. Hagens, Mr. Tower, Admiral Steadman, Mr. Yan 
Dyck, and Dr. George H. Cook, of the Vandalia. The 
members of the Khedive's household and family who were 
invited could not come because of the mourning for the 
King of Italy. The dinner was worthy of the best kitchens 
in Paris, and gave the guests a good idea of the culinary re- 
sources of Egypt. At the close toasts were drunk to the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 231. 

Khedive and President. Mr. Farman then proposed the 
health of General Grant in a felicitous speech. He said 
we had with us a distinguished citizen of the United States, 
and made a graceful reference to the services of the General. 
During the darkest hours of our national life our guest had 
by his own merits risen from the modest position as colonel 
to command a million of men. After the war, which, under 
the leadership of this illustrious chieftain had been brought 
to a succesful close, a grateful people elected General 
Grant to the Presidency. They believed that a man who 
had done so much in war would be the ruler in peace. 
"They were not deceived," continued Mr. Farman. "He ad- 
ministered the government so wisely, that he was re-elected 
by an increased majority. He declined a third nomination, 
and comes to Europe, and now to Egypt, for rest and recrea- 
tion. Coming, as he does, from one of the youngest of 
nations to a land abounding in monuments of antiquity, 
we can assure him of a hearty welcome." General Grant 
said in response that nothing in his trip thus far pleased 
him so much as his visit to Egypt, and he anticipated even 
more pleasure as he progressed in his journey. Speeches 
were made by General Stone and Judge Batcheller. 
Judge Hagens, in French, asked us to do honor to Mrs. 
Grant. This honor was paid most loyally. Dr. Lansing 
would not speak because he had to preach next day. 
After an hour or two of chat, we went home, feeling that 
our entertainment by Mr. Farman had been of the most 
felicitious and succesful character — feeling also, as General 
Grant said to the writer of this letter, that America had 
in Mr. Farman a most excellent representative, who could 
not but do honor to our consular service. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

GENEKAL GRANT AND HIS PARTY LIFE ON THE NILE 

DOMESTIC SCENES FRIENDS ON THE WAY NIGHT 

AND MORNING! TWILIGHT ON THE NILE BEAUTIFUL 

SCENES ADVENTURES DURING THE JOURNEY. 

The Khedive, writes Mr. Young, has placed at the dis- 
posal of the General one of his steam vessels, and she 
swings out into the stream with the American flag at the 
fore. We have all been in a bustle and a hui-ry to get 
away. There was the leaving the place, the massing of 
bundles, the command of the impedimenta. We were 
alert for the trip, and we had been feeding our imagina- 
tions with visions of Eastern life, with visions of the faded 
but glorious remnants of the ancient civilization. Cairo 
was French. The infidel had gilded and wall-papered the 
city of the faithful, and it was hard to realize you were in 
an Oriental land where everybody spoke Italian and 
French, and Vienna beer was among the principal articles 
of merchandise. But now we were really to throw behind 
us the tawdry French manners and customs which invaded 
us in our palace, and to go for days and days upon the 
waters of the Nile. We bought each a fez, and some of 
us ventured upon the luxury of an Indian hat. Others 
went into colored spectacles, and the marquis, a far seeing 
man, who had been on the Nile, and who was not in the 
best of spirits at leaving a palace to float for weeks between 
Arab villages, appeared with an astonishing umbrella. 
We had many friends to see us off. General Stone, Judge 
Batcheller and Judge Barringer, with their wives ; General 
Loring, and others. There were radiant mounds of flow- 

232 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



233 



ers as remembrances to Mrs. Grant, and as much leave- 
taking as though we were bound from New York to Liver- 
pool. Some one makes this suggestion when the observa- 
tion is made that we are about to undertake a journey as 
long as from New York to Liverpool and return. The 
General sits in a corner with Stone and Loring, talking 
about old days in the army and making comments upon 
famed and illustrious names that the historian would wel- 
come if I could only dare to gather ujd crumbs of this inter- 
esting conversation. At noon the signal for our journey is 
given and farewells are spoken, and we head under full 
steam for the Equator. 




AN ORIENTAL BAZAAR. 



Our party .is thus composed — we have the General, his 
wife, and his son, Jesse. The Khedive has assigned us an 
officer of his household (Sami Bey), a Circassian gentle- 
man educated in England. Sami Bey is one of the heroes 



234 GRANTS TOUR 

of our trip, and we soon came to like him, Moslem as he 
is, for his quaint, cordial, kindly ways. I suppose we 
should call Sami Bey the executive officer of the expedi- 
tion, as to him all responsibility is given. We have also 
with us, thanks to the kindness of the Khedive, Emile 
Brugsch, one of the directors of the Egyptian Museum. 
Mr. Brugsch is a German, brother to the chief director, 
who has made the antiquities of EgyjDt a study. Mr. 
Brugsch knows every tomb and column in the land. He 
has lived for weeks in the temples and ruins, superintend- 
ing excavations, copying inscriptions, deciphering hiero- 
glyphics, and his presence with us is an advantage that 
cannot be over-estimated, for it is given to him to point 
with his cane and unravel mystery after mystery of the 
marvels engraved on the stones and rocks, while we stand 
by in humble and listening wonder. "What a blank our 
trip would be without Brugsch!" said the General one 
day, as we were coming back from a ruin — a ruin as abso- 
lute and meaningless as the Aztec mounds in New Mex- 
ico, but which our fine young friend had made as lumin- 
ous as a page in Herodotus. The Consul General, E. E. 
Farman, formerly editor of the Wedern New Yorher, is 
also of our party, and I have already spoken of the 
pleasant impression he made upon General Grant in 
Cairo. The General had so agreeable a time with the 
good boys of the Vandalia that he asked Commander 
Bobeson to come and bring with him as many of his of- 
ficers as could be spared. He was anxious to have Kobe- 
son, and all kinds of schemes and persuasions were in- 
vented to secure him. When the gracious commands of 
the lady of our expedition were put^ upon him the Com- 
mander paused, and I think for one whole evening he had 
resolved to go up the Nile. But the morning came, and it 
brought the cold fact that the Commander had a ship to 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



235 



command, and that it was his duty to command it, and the 
Nile was in no sense a navigable water. So Robeson gave 
up the Nile and sent three of his officers to accept the 
General's invitation — the Chief Surgeon, George H. 
Cooke; Lieutenant W. A. Hadden and Ensign F. A. 




EASTERN DONKEYS. 



Wilner — who, with the writer (in all ten), form the party 
who make this Nile excursion. That is to say, we form 
that fragment of the party who live in the main cabin. 
The Consul General is accompanied by a kind of Arabian 
Sancho Panza named Hassan. I am afraid it is because 
the Consul-General is tall and thin, and Hassan is short, 
and brown, and stout, that we call the latter Sancho Panza. 
However, the comparison comes from illustrious lips, and 
was made one evening when our Consul General and 
Hassan were coming over the plains of Dandoreh, mount- 
ed on donkeys. Hassan has been eighteen years in the 
legation. He speaks a ready, expressive, but limited, 



236 GRANT'S TOUR ' 

English, wears an Arabian costume, including a scimetar, 
and is proud of two things — first, that he wears a gold 
American eagle mounted on a pin, by which he was 
decorated by Consul General Butler, and second, that he 
caj)tured John H. Surrat. Hassan is a Moslem, the hus- 
band of two wives, and believes in Dr. Lansing, the 
missionary, who educates his children. No one ever heard 
Hassan speak ill of a consul general. For eighteen years 
he has seen dynasties rise and fall, from De Leon to Hale, 
from Butler to Farman, and he has only good words for 
them all, living and dead. 'Hassan is proud of his mission 
as a member of the General's party, and walks the deck 
sabred and turbaned like Othello. The Marquis makes 
no secret of the fact that his heart is in our palace of 
Kasrrel Noussa. He would gladly have waited there until 
our return, but I supjDOse it never occurred to the General, 
and so he paces the deck with colored glasses and an 
umbrella under his arm, wondering'how people can go for 
weeks on a boat, and ride donkeys, and wander among 
dust-heaped ruins, when a palace is in readiness and you 
have only to clap your hands for slaves to answer your 
call. 

Our boat is called Zinet el Bohren, or as my omniscient 
friend translates it, the Light of Two Bivers. It is a long, 
narrow steamer, with two cabins, drawing only a few feet 
of water, with a flat bottomed keel. The Nile is a river 
of sand and mud, and as the bottom is always changing 
you must expect to run aground every little while and to 
run off again. This in fact we do, and the announcement 
that we are aground makes about as much impression upon 
us as if a passenger in a Broadway omnibus heard the 
wheel of his coach interlock with another. The Nile boats 
seem arranged to meet any emergency in the way of land 
— for this river is sprawling, eccentric, comprehensive, 




VJEW OF THE RIVER NILE. 
Showing the Places Visited by General Grant. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 239 

without any special channel — running one way to-day, 
another next day. To know the river, therefore, must be 
something like knowing the temper of a whimsical woman 
— you must court and woo her and wait upon her humors. 
Navigation is a constant seeking after knowledge. We 
have a captain in a comely uniform, with a clear cut Arab 
face, who stands in the middle of the boat and shouts. 
We have two men with poles who lean over the prow and 
sink their poles in the water, and now and then shout. 
Then at the wheel we have one, or perhaps two, steersmen, 
generally fine, grave, swarthy fellows, who do not shout 
much, but, knowing the river's coquettish ways, do as 
they please, unmindful of the shouting. For an hour, for 
two or three hours, we hum along with an easy, trembling 
motion, the smooth, shining river lapping our sides, and 
the low, green banks falling behind us. Then we have a 
tremor, a sidling to one side, and the engines stop. This 
was so serious a business, especially to our seafaring friends, 
that for the first or second time they regarded it as a call 
to quarters or a fire alarm, but we soon became used to it, 
and running aground hardly interrupted the idlest conver- 
sation. When evening comes, our captain picks out the 
best point that can be found after sunset, and runs up to 
the land. The crew are sent ashore with torches and 
hammers, posts are driven into the soft clay and we are 
tied to the shore. There, as if out of the earth they come, 
we have a group of Bedouins in their turbans, who gather 
on the river bank and make a bonfire of dried sugar cane 
or cornstalks and keep watch over us during the night. 
The first night we tied up, Mr. Grant, the younger, and 
your correspondent went ashore, seeking out Hassan to 
keep us company. There was our group of crouching 
Arabs over the fire, their dark features lighting up into a 
strange but not unimpressive kind of beauty. We had 



240 GRANTS TOUR 

been told — I believe all tbe books written by our English 
friends tells us — ^that the only way to extract courtesy from 
an Oriental is to beat him, trample him, or at least show 
him the hilt of your dagger or the muzzle of a pistol. 
The only daggers our party posssess are the honest table 
knives, which some one of the many Mohammed Alls is 
at this moment most likely scouring. The only pistols I 
can trace are General Grant's and my own. The General, 
however, left his weapon in the bottom of one of his trunks 
in London, and mine is looked upon as a kind of infernal 
machine, dangerous to no one but the owner. However, we 
treat our Arabs with civility, and Hassan supplies them 
with cigarettes. They wish to stand in our honor, but we 
insist on their taking all the comfort possible out of 
their modest, crackling fire. They tell us their names, 
Mohammed one thing and Mohammed another. They 
have only one wife each and live in the neighboring village. 
They have a sheik, and he sent them hither to watch over 
the hadji. Times are hard with them. The Nile has 
been bad, and when the Nile is bad, calamity comes and 
the people go away to other villages. We did not like to 
talk politics with them because we feared that Hassan, who 
is an admirer and friend of the Khedive, might limit the 
tendencies of our inquiries and give only barren answers. 
They said, however, they would sit over us all night and 
keep us from harm. I have no doubt they were sound 
asleep, buiTOwed near the cinders, long before any one of 
our party had retired, except, perhaps, the Doctor, whose 
habits are exemplary, and who sets us an example of early 
hours. 

There can be no more interesting and, I am afraid, 
perilous experiment than to put ten human beings on a 
boat for three weeks and bid them enjoy themselves. I 
looked around the boat with a little curiosity as we came 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



241 



in and began to adjust ourselves to the conditions of our 
trip. There are two things that try friendship — getting 
married and traveling together. You have to dovetail 
each other, to make and receive compromises. Questions 
of coffee and tea and chocolate, of breakfast and luncheon^ 
of amusement and conversation, enter into travel. There 
is the passenger who is never quite well, the passenger 
whose health is a reflection upon others, the passenger 
who worries about the engines and the mails, the passen- 
ger who cannot stand the sea cooking, and compares every 
meal with a famous dinner he once enjoyed at Delmon- 
ico's. Then there is the exasperating passenger, who 
contradicts everybody and is ready to wager. Our little 
party developed none of these eccentricities. So far as the 
daily and hourly rubbing together was concerned nothing 
came to mar our harmony. We adjusted ourselves to the 
General's modes of life ; and as those were of the simplest 
and most considerate character, it involved no sacrifice. 
We live in a cluster of small rooms around the cabin. 
My own little room has a window within a few inches of 
the water. I have only to put out my hand to feel the 
cooling sense of the stream. It is a wonder how much 
you can do with a room not much larger than an ordinary 
sideboard. Clothing and books find rest in odd kinds of 
places. You sleep with your brushes and combs. In one 
corner is a little crate of Egyptian crockery which the 
Marquis induced me to purchase at Sicut, and when I 
awake at night I wonder how I am ever to carry it over 
the seas, and what people will say. I do not think that 
the purchase was a useful one, but it did not cost much, 
and as everybody seems to be going mad on crockery, 
I may make a reputation as a connoisseur of Egyptian art 
at a small expense if only the crockery stands the seas. 
We breakfast whenever we please — in the French fashion. 



242 GRANTS TOUR 

The General is an early or late riser, according as we liave 
an engagement for the day. If there are ruins to be seen 
in the morning, he is generally first on the deck with his 
Indian helmet swathed in silk, and as he never waits, we 
are off on military time. If there are no sights to be seen, 
the morning hours drift away. We lounge on the deck. 
We go among the Arabs and see them cooking. We lean 
over the prow and watch the sailors poke the Nile with 
long poles and call out the message from its bed. Some- 
times a murderous feeling steals over some of the younger 
people, and they begin to shoot at a stray crane or pelican. 
I am afraid these shots do not diminish the resources of 
the Nile, and the General suggests that the sportsmen go 
ashore and fire at one of the poor, patient, drudging camels, 
who pulls his heavy-laden hump along the bank. There 
are long pauses of silence, in which the General maintains 
his long conceded supremacy. Then come little ripples 
of real, useful conversation, when the General strikes some 
theme connected with the war or his administration. Then 
your serious correspondent wishes he were a Las Casas or 
a Boswell, that he might gather up and bind these sheaves 
of history. Or perhaps our friend Brugsch opens upon 
some theme connected with Egypt. And we sit in grate- 
ful silence while he tells of the giants who reigned in the 
old dynasties, of the gods they honored, of the tombs and 
temples, of their glory and their fall. I think that we 
will all say that the red letter hours of our Nile journey 
were when General Grant told us how he met Lee at Ap- 
pomattox, or how Sherman fought at Shiloh, or when 
Brugsch, in a burst of fine enthusiasm, told us of the 
glories of the eighteenth dynasty, or what Karnak must 
have been in the days of its splendour and its pride. But 
you must not suppose that we have nothing but serious 
talk in those idle hours on the Nile. Hadden sometimes 



AROUND THE WORLD. 243 

insists tliat Sami Bey shall become a Christian, and offers 
to have subscriptions raised for his conversion, and this 
generally superinduces a half-serious, half-laughing con- 
versation, in which our Moslem friend shows how firmly 
he believes in the Prophet, and how it is that an accom- 
plished and widely-traveled man of the world may see all 
the virtues of faith in the faith of Islam. 

Sometimes a dahabeeah sweeps in sight, and we rush 
for the glasses. The dahabeeah is an institution on the 
Nile, a cumbrous, quaint sailing machine, with a single 
bending spar like the longest side of a right angled triangle. 
The dahabeeah, although a boat with sailing qualities, 
might really be called a suite of floating apartments. You 
take your dahabeeah for two or three months. You supply 
yourself with the luxuries of Cairo. You hire a dragoman, 
a crew of Arabs. If you like books, you have your smail 
library. If you like sport, you have your guns. You steal 
off in the morning and shoot the wild duck. You lounge 
and read. If you have no wind, you lie in the river and 
watch the idle flapping of the sail and the crowd of black 
and brown fellahs howling for backsheesh. You enjoy 
your life, or you fancy you enjoy it, which is the same 
thing. We met several friends on the way. The first 
we overhauled was Mr. Drexel, and he came on board as 
brown as Sitting Bull, having a glorious time, but not 
above hearing about home. Then we boarded another, 
under the impression that it was an American, and found 
that we had fallen upon a hospitable English cousin, who 
had been dawdling about waiting for the wind. His first 
question was as to the health of the Pope, which was 
answered by telling of Victor Emmanuel's death. Then 
we came across Mr. and Mrs. Rowland, enjoying their 
honey-moon on the Nile, but anxious for news from home. 
Home ! Yes, that blessed, magic word which all the glory 



244 GRANTS TOUR 

of the Orient cannot dim. This witching life only 
heightens the dear memories of far America. I wonder if 
the third month, or let us even say the second month, 
does not hang wearily upon our friends in the dahabeeah. 
You see, we are coming by steam, swift from the living 
world, laden with news. And when our friends ask with 
almost the eagerness of thirst for some drop — some dew- 
drop, even — of news from the world behind, you wonder 
how time must hang upon active minds the third month 
on the Nile. One gallant friend, whom we met near 
Keneh, informed us that the principal amusement was 
betting, not on cards, but on everything — whether there 
would be wind or not, I suppose ; whether the eggs would 
come on the table hard boiled or soft boiled; whether the 
oranges would be sweet or sour. You see how betting 
may become an endless amusement, like arithmetical pro- 
gression, and have some idea of the resources of the 
third month on the Nile. But we had no complaints — 
not one. All the stories that came to us were that our 
friends were having the best time, the very best time, 
never such a glorious time, only that anxious, thirsting 
question about news from home. 

When the sun throws his shadow over the desert and 
the white desert sands assume a browner hue, and the 
plodding camels pass like shadows over the horizon and 
pant with the long day's burden, our sailors begin to look 
out for the shore. The Arab mariner loves the shore, and 
has no fancy for the night. It may be the evil eye, which 
has a singular influence in all Eastern deliberations. It 
may be that we are not in much of a hurry, and the river 
is not to be depended upon. By the time the twilight 
comes we have reached a convenient place, and our boat 
hugs up snugly beside the shore. Stakes are driven into 
the soft clay banks, rude steps are cut in the side if it is 



AROUND THE WORLD, 247 

precipitous, and very soon we have the gray headed sheik, 
with his followers, coming to watch over us. Then conies 
the clatter of cooking and supper, the crew sitting around 
a large dish and helping themselves with their fingers. 
We have two or three devout Moslems among our crew 
who go ashore to pray. The steersman, who wears a 
turban and white flowing robe, is the pattern of I)iety. 
He takes his woollen mantle about him. He steps down 
to the brink and washes his feet, his hands and his fore- 
head. Then he lays his mantle upon the ground and 
looks toward Mecca. He stands, and holding his hands 
in front, with the finger tips touching, makes a low bow, 
a stately, slow bow, his body bending almost into a right 
angle. He pauses again, standing erect, murmuring his 
prayer — that there is no God but God and Mohammed is 
his prophet. He prostrates himself on the earth, kisses it 
and rising stands erect again. The prostration takes place 
two or three times ; the prayer is over ; the faithful 
Moslem gathers his garments over his shoulders and comes 
back to the boat and supper. When our dinner is over 
we have coffee on the deck, where we sit and talk. 
If we are near a village some of the younger* ones go 
ashore. In a few minutes we know by the barking of 
the dogs that they have invaded the quiet homes of 
an Egyptian community. Hassan generally goes along 
on these expeditions ; but the precaution has not been 
of any value thus far. The villages are sleepy enough 
and the villagers as quiet as possible. The children peer 
at you through the straw, the elder ones come clamoring 
for backsheesh, and there is sure to be a blind old soul to 
crave charity in the house of the most merciful God. 
You pass along through streets not more than a few feet 
wide, with dogs in the front and rear and dogs barking 
from the roofs of the low mud huts, thatched with straw. 



248 GRANT'S TOUR, 

One or two of these expeditions generally satisfies even the 
most enterprising of our party ; for Egyptian villages are, 
as far as I have seen, about the same. While some of us 
are ashore seeking adventure and the others are clustered 
on the deck, chatting about friends and home and the 
incidents of the day. Our sailors gather in a circle and 
we have Arab music. I cannot claim any knowledge of 
music, although many of my most pleasant memories are 
associated with its influence. This music of the Arabs is a 
school of its own, which I would defy even the genius of 
Wagner to embody. I have often thought that the spirit of 
a people is exjoressed in its music as much as in its literature 
and laws. The music of our Northern nations always seemed 
to ring with the sense of strength and victory. I 
remember how the music of the Southern slaves was a 
strange contrast to the fiery strains of their masters. 
There was a low, plaintive key in it that spoke of sad- 
ness, despair, degradation, that was more a moan and 
cry than a harmony. I fancied I heard the same plain- 
tive cry in the music of the Arabs. 

There is one thing whose enjoyment never ceases, at 
least with the writer, the beauty of the atmosphere and the 
sky. Sleep with me is so coy a dame, not always to be won 
by the most gentle and patient wooing, that I am alive to 
all the incidents of the vessel. Before sunrise you hear the 
ropes released from the shore struggling back to the ship. 
You see the torches flashing up and down the bank, noting 
the preparation for departure. I sleej) with my cheek 
almost against the wide window pane, almost on the level 
of the stream, or if I am weary of dreaming or of seeking 
for dreams, I have only to open my eyes and see the heavens 
in all their glory, and stars and constellations — to see them 
again, as it were, embossed on the dark brown river. You 
hear the cries of the sailors at their post and answering 



AROUND THE WORLD. 249 

cries from the shore, and the boat pulls herself together 
like a strong man gathering for a race, and we are away. 
You throw open your window and put your hand in the 
water, and feel the current play with your fingers with! 
almost the old delight of childhood. The morning comes 
over the sands, and you watch the deep blue of the night 
melt into primrose and pearl. The brown sands of the 
desert become pale again, and the groves of date palms 
becomes palms in truth, and not the fancies that almost 
startle you during the night. In the early morning it is 
cool, and it is noon before the sun asserts its power, and 
even then it is not a harsh dominion, for we have known no 
hour as yet when we could not walk up and down the 
deck in our fall garments without discomfort. Throughout 
the day there is that same open sky, the same clear atmos- 
phere which makes far distant objects as near as you find 
them in Colorado. Sometimes you see with wonder in the 
very heart of the desert grateful streams of water, skirted 
with palm and sheltered by hills. This is the mirage — 
one of the most frequent phenomena on the Nile. Some- 
times a battalion of clouds will come from the east and 
marshal themselves from horizon to horizon, and the sight 
is rare, indeed, and you cannot know, you who live in the 
land of clouds and storm, what beauty they conceal. I am 
thinking of one sunset which I saw an hour or two ago, 
before I left our friends on the deck at their coffee, to do a 
paragraph or so in this wearisome letter. The clouds had 
been following us all the afternoon, throwing their fleecy 
canopy over the plains of Thebes. Not ominous, black 
clouds, big with rain and thunder and bringing awe, but 
light, trailing clouds, hanging over the heavens like gossamer. 
There was the desert, coming almost down to the river — 
grudging the Nile even the strip of green which marked the 
line of the telegraph. There was the desert — vast, wide, barren 



250 GRANTS TOUR 

— with no vestige of life beyond a belated peasant driving 
his camel, or a flock of birds hurrying as we came. So the 
clouds were a comfort, and we watched them at their play, 
grateful for anything that took our thoughts from the 
scene of endless and irretrievable desolation. Then as the 
sun went down there came the struggle between coming 
night and the stern, burning majesty of the eternal mon- 
arch of nature. The pearls and grays became crimson and 
saffron. The sun shot forth his power in a sunburst of 
light. There were ridges of crimson and gold, luminous 
and flashing, that it might almost seem to burn and hiss 
like flames in the forge. Then came the tranquil blue — 
blue of every shade — every conceivable tint of blue — from 
that which Murillo threw into the eyes of the wonder- 
stricken Madonna in the supreme moment of her joy, to 
the deep violet blue, which tells of the passion, the patri- 
otism and the revenge of Judith. The struggle still went 
on, but the victory was not with the sun, and it only re- 
mained for him to die as became a great king. The palm 
grew dim in the shadows. The flaming tints of crimson 
and scarlet and gold became brown and dark. The desert 
flushed with purple — with the purple of wine — and it 
seemed as if old Egypt's kings spoke from the desert that 
was once their throne, proclaiming their sovereignty. All 
that was left was the line of green that had become black, 
and the glorious sky above, with the glory of conquering 
night; and about us this land of eternal summer, beautifiil 
even in death — beautiful with the beauty of death. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ARRIVAL AT STOUT RECEPTION TO GENERAL GRANT 

FRIENDS ON THE WAY DONKEY-RIDING IN THE 

DESERT A VISIT TO ABYDOS THE BATTLE WITH 

THE SUN THE FOUNTAIN-HEAD OF CIVILIZATION 

THE RUINED CITY TOMBS AND TEMPLES CENTURIES 

OLD HOME AGAIN. 

• On the morning of the 19th of January, writes our cor- 
respondent, that being the third day of our journey, we came 
to the town of Siout, or Assiout, as some call it. We have 
a Vice Consul here, and tokens of our coming had been 
sent, as could be seen by the flags which decorated the bank 
and the crowd on the shore. Siout is the capital of Upper 
Egypt, and is a city of 25,000 inhabitants. The city is some 
distance back from the river, and grew into importance as 
the depot of much of the caravan trade from Darfour. 
Upon arriving the Vice Consul and his son came on board 
and were presented to the General. Congratulations were 
exchanged, and we offered our friends coffee and cigars in 
the true Oriental style. The name of our Consul here is 
Wasif el Hayat.. He is a Syrian and a large landed 
pr )prietor. He is a grave elderly person, who spoke only 
A abic, but his son had been educated in Bay rout, at the 
mission schools, and knew English. We all drove to the 
town. It was over parched fields, through a country that 
in more favorable years would bloom like a garden. But 
the Nile is bad this year, and a bad Nile is a calamity 
second only to a famine in Egypt. We rode into the town 
and through the bazaars. All the town seemed to know of 
our coming, for wherever we went crowds swarmed around 

251 



252 



GRANT'S TOUR 



US, and we had to force our donkeys through masses of 
Arabs and Egyptians of all ages and conditions, some al- 
most naked — crowds crying for baksheesh or pressing arti- 
cles of merchandise upon us. The bazaars are narrow cov- 
ered ways, covered with matting or loose boards, enough 








to break the force of the sun. The stores are little cubby 
holes of rooms, in front of which the trader sits and calls 
upon you to buy. As these avenues are not more than 
six feet wide at best, you can imagine what a time we had 
in making our progress. ,The town had some fine houses 
and mosqu(is, but in the main it was like all towns in 
Upper Egypt, a collection of mud hovels. We rode 
beyond the town to the tombs built in the sand and climb- 
ed the limestone rock on our donkeys. This was our first 
evidence of the manner of sepulture in the olden time. 
These desert rocks of limestone were tunnelled and made 
into rooms, and here the mummied dead found rest. The 



AROUND THE WORLD. 253 

chambers appointed for them were large and spacious, 
according to the means of the deceased. In some that we 
entered there was a chamber, an ante-chamber, and some- 
times connecting chambers. There were inscriptions on 
the walls, but they had been defa2ed. The early Christians 
had deemed it their duty to obey the first commandment 
by removing the representatives of the gods that came in 
their way. The ceilings of the tombs had been once 
d3Corated, but modern Christians have deemed it their 
duty to deface them by firing pistol shots. When you 
visit a tomb and note the blue stars and astronomical 
forms that -the ancients painted with so much care, it is so 
cunning to try the echo by firing your pistol. Consequent- 
ly the roofs are spotted with bullet marks. Here also 
came the wanderers for shelter, and you see what the fires 
have done. What the tombs may have been in the past, 
when they came fresh from pious, loving hands, you can 
imagine. But what with ancient Christian iconoclasts, 
modern Christian wanderers. Bedouins, Arabs, selling the 
graves for ornaments, nothing remains but empty lime- 
stone rooms filling with sand and a few heiroglyphic 
memorials on the walls. 

We were bidden to an entertainment at the home of 
Wasif el Hayat, and seven being the hour, we set forth. 
We were all anxious about our first Arab entertainment, 
and after some deliberation our naval men concluded to go 
in their uniforms. The Doctor rode ahead in the carriage 
with General and Mrs. Grant and the Consul- General. 
As the Doctor wore his uniform and the others were in 
plain dress he was welcomed by the awe-stricken Moslems 
as the King of America. Hadden and the rest of us rode 
behind on our trusty and well-beloved donkeys, Hadden 
in uniform, followed by wondering crowds. I suj^pose he 
was taken for a minor potentate, as in the Oriental eyes 



254 GRANT'S TOUR 

all that lace and gold could not be wasted on anything less 
than princely rank. But we all had more or less attention, 
although we could feel that the uniforms were the centre 
of glory, and that we shone with borrowed splendor. As 
we came to the house of Wasif el Hay at, we found a real 
transformation scene. Lanterns lined the street, servants 
stood on the road, holding blazing torches, a transparency 
was over the gate with the words, "Welcome, General 
Grant." The "N" was turned upside down, but that 
made no difference, for the welcome here in far Africa 
made the heart throb quicker. As we rode up, torches 
blazed, rockets went up into the air, various colored lights 
were burned, and we passed into the courtyard glowing 
with light and color, passed into the house over carpets 
and rugs of heavy texture and gorgeous pattern. Our 
host met us at the gates of his house and welcomed us in 
the stately Oriental way, kissing the General's hand as he 
clasped it in. his two hands, and then toucliing his own 
heart, lips and brow. Here we met the Governor, and, 
more welcome still, the Kev. I. R. Alexander and his wife. 
Mr. Alexander is one of the professors in the missionary 
college and is under the direction of the United Presbyterian 
Church. The dinner came, and it was regal in its profu- 
sion and splendor. I should say there were at least twenty 
Courses, all well served. When it was concluded, the son 
of the host arose, and in remarkably clear and correct 
English, proposed the General's health. You will allow 
me, I am sure, to give you a fragment of this speech. 
"Long have we heard and wondered," said the speaker, 
"at the strange progress wjiich America has made during 
this past century, by which she has taken the first position 
among the most widely civilized nations. She has so 
quickly improved in sciences, morals and arts, that the 
world stands amazed at this extraordinary progress which 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



255 



surpasses the swiftness of lightning. It is to the hard 
work of her great and vv^ise men that all this advance is 
imputed, those who have shown to the world what wise, 
courageous, patriotic men can do. Let all the world look 
to America and follow her example — that nation which 




GROUP OF BEDOUi^S. 



has taken as the basis of her laws and the object of her 
undertakings to maintain freedom and equality among her 
own people and secure them for others, avoiding all am- 
bitious schemes which would draw her into bloody and 
disastrous wars, and trying by all means to maintain peace 
internally and externally. The only two great wars upon 
which shcv has engaged were entered upon for pure and 
just purposes — the first for releasing herself from the 



256 GRANTS TOUR 

English yoke and erecting lier independence, and the 
other for stopping slavery and strengthening the union of 
the States ; and well we know that it was mainly under 
God due to the talent, courage and wisdom of His Excel- 
lency General Grant-, that the latter of the two enterprises 
was brought to a successful issue." The speech closed by a 
tribute to the General and the Khedive. General Gran t said 
in response that nothing in his whole trip had so impressed 
him as this unexpected, this generous welcome in the heart 
of Egyj)t. He had anticijiated great pleasure in his visit 
to Egypt, and the anticipation had been more than realized. 
He thanked his host and especially the young man who 
had spoken of him with so high praise for their reception. 
The dinner dissolved into coffee, conversation and cigars. 
Mrs. Grant had a long talk with Mrs. Alexander about 
home — Mrs. Alexander being a fair young bride who had 
come out from America to cast her lot with her husband 
in the unpromising vineyard of Siout. And when the 
evening grew on we rode back to our boat, through the 
night and over the plain. Torch bearers accompanied us 
through the town. Donkey boys and townspeojole followed 
us to the river bank. The moon was shining, and as we 
rode home — you see we already call the boat our home — 
we talked over the pleasant surprise we had found in Siout 
and of its many strange j)hases of Oriental life. 

On the 21st of January we hauled up to the bank in 
the town of Girgel. We found Admiral Steedman and 
Mr. Davis, of Boston, moored in their dahabeeah, and they 
repeated the same story that we hear all along the Nile, 
that they had a good time, a splendid time, could not have 
had a better time. It seems that their dahabeeah had run 
aground, and the Admiral came out in old quarter-deck 
form and gave all the orders necessary to save the vessel. 
But after he had given the orders, as became a veteran 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. ' 257 

sailor, who had battled with tempests in every part of the 
world, it was discovered that the crew wQre Arabs and did 
not understand a word of English, and probably thought 
that the Admiral's vigorous forms of speech were a kind 
of devotion — a manner of worshiping common only to the 
infidel. So the Admiral's vessel had to save itself and we 
had our own fun out of the narrative as we sat on the 
deck over our coffee and watched the Arabs crouching 
over the fire. The Admiral and Mr. Davis spent a part of 
the evening with us; but just as the talk was iii fall tide 
the dragoman came on -board with word that there was a 
risino; wind. Those who sail in the dahabeeah must take 
the wind when it comes, and so our welcome guests hurried 
away and in a few minutes were speeding up the stream. 

It was rather a long distance from our landing place to 
Abydos, and Sami Bey had given ojders that we should be 
ready at eight for our journey. I am afraid it was quite 
an effort for some of the party whose names shall be with- 
held to heed this command. But the General was first on 
deck and very soon came Mrs. Grant eager and smiling. 
And as the General waits for no one, those who were late 
had to hurry their breakfasts, and some of them were 
skurrying up the side of the bank with a half-eaten bis- 
cuit. There were our Arabs and donkeys all waiting, and 
the moment our company began to muster there was a 
chorus of screams — "Good donkey," "Good morning," 
"baksheesh," and other limited forms of speech. The 
donkeys charged upon us in a mass, each owner screaming 
out the merits of his animal. It was only by vigorous ef- 
forts on the part of Hassan that we could see and select 
our animals. Hassan had given me a private bit of in- 
formation as to which donkey I should select, and I found 
myself the master of a littl-e mite of a creature, scarcely 
high enough to keej) my feet from the ground, but vigor- 



258 



GRANT'S TOUR 



ous and strong and disposed to stop and bray for tlie 
amusement of the company. Hadden's experience witli 
donkeys had made him circumspect, and the General ad- 
vised him to select as small an animal as possible, or, as a 
precautionary measure to the end that a valuable life 
should be saved to the navy, that he should tie himself on 
its back. The General himself had a horse placed at Lis 




EGYPTIAN RUINS. 



disposal by the Pacha who rules the district, but he rode 
the animal with a protest, as it had a shambling gait, and 
wished that courtesy to his host did not prevent his taking 
a donkey. The Marquis had some difficulty in pleasing 
himself, and when at last he set out with an umbrella un- 
der his arm and his eyes shaded with sombre spectacles, 
the suggestion was made that he was a Methodist col- 
porteur on a journey of preaching. But there was a 
gleam of satisfaction in his noble face, as he informed us 
that a couple of camels had gone up from the town laden 



AROUND THE WORLD. 261 

with refreshments, and that we should have breakfast in 
the temple. As I have hinted in this correspondence, the 
Marquis has no enthusiasm for ruins, especially Egyptian 
ruins, while he has positive and valuable views about 
breakfast. So in time we were off over the country for 
Abydos. The fields were cracked, and tlie ditches, which 
in good times would carry irrigating streams, were dry. 
Each of us had two Arabs for an escort, and the duty of 
these attendants seemed to be to encourage his beast by a 
sound something between a whisper and a hiss, or shout- 
ing or beating him. I rather think the beating did not 
amount to much, for these people love their animals and 
live with them and make them companions and friends. 
But the lady of our expedition would not endure the 
stick, and we were halted, and Hassan was summoned and 
told to say to the attendants that they must not beat the 
donkeys or they would have no baksheesh, not a farthing. 
There could be no more fearful punishment than this, and 
there was no more beating. But the Arabs had their sat- 
isfaction in kneeling and running at your side and seeking 
a conversation. Their observations became monotonous. 
"Good donkey," "My name Mohammed," "My name 
Ali," "Good donkey," "Yankee Doodle," "Good morn- 
ing," " Good donkey." Others came with bits of scarabee 
and bits of ancient pottery, fragments of mummy lids and 
shreds of mummy cloth to drive a trade. I was on the 
point of making a moral observation upon the character 
of a people who would rifle the tombs of their ancestors 
and make merchandise of their bones and grave orna- 
ments, when it occurred to me that these were Arabs and 
descended, not from the Egyptians, but from the men who 
conquered the Egyptians and occupied their land. I hope 
it is not against the laws of war for a conquering race to 
sell the bones of those they have defeated, for our Arabs 



262 GRANT'S TOUR 

were so poor and wretched tliat no one could grudge them 
any means of earning a piastre. This running trade con- 
tinues all the way, and in time you become used to it, as in 
time one could become used to everything. You become 
iised to the noises, the conversation, the entreaties to buy, 
and ride on unconscious, or, if anything, amused with 
your Arab, who is generally an amusing, good natured 
scamp, of wonderful endurance, and anxious to please. I 
became quite friendly with my Mohammed Ali, who 
had two English phrases with which he constantly 
plied me — "I am serene" and "Yankee Doodle." The 
latter phrase was the name of his donkey, and I was about 
to thank him for his kind recognition of my country when 
Hassan, from whom I draw great stores of information, 
told me that they had a variety of names — English, 
French, German, Italian — which they used according to 
the nationality of their riders. I had no doubt that my 
present plodding Yankee Doodle had done duty as Bis- 
marck, McMahon and the Prince of Wales. 

Our journey was through a country that in a better 
time must have been a garden ; but the Nile not having 
risen this year all is parched and barren. Abydos was 
built on the Libyan Desert, and the road to the great 
oasis leads to it over the mountains. The old Egyptians 
were practical in this respect, that not having land to 
spare they built their tombs and temples in the sand, and 
kept their narrow, fertile lands for corn. They could 
worship their gods in the sand, they could sleep in the 
sand; but corn and onions needed all the parsimonious 
Nile would give. We kept on over a series of irrigating 
ditches, over sand hills, over roads that had not been 
mended within the memory of man. My first impression 
was to hold my animal well in hand and guide him, to keep 
from going over his head into a ditch and show him the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 263 

safest paths. But I soon learned the elementary lesson in 
donkey-riding — namely, that your animal knows more 
about the subject than you can teach him, and that you 
had better discharge your mind from all care on the 
object and allow him to go in his own way wherever 
Mohammed Ali will lead him. . Then if you can make up 
your mind to disengage your feet from the stirrups and 
let them swing just as when a boy you used to swing over 
a gate, you will find it easier in the long run. I noticed 
that those of our party who had the most experience of 
Egypt rode in this fashion, and so, while some of our 
ambitious members, who had learned horsemanship in the 
best schools and loved to brace themselves in the saddle, 
were anxious about stirrups, I allowed myself to dangle. 
There is another reason for this, as I learned from practi- 
cal experience one day at Assouan. The donkey is apt to 
fall, for the land is full of holes and traps. To fall with 
your feet in the stirrups might be a serious matter. But 
when Yankee Doodle took it into his head to throw his 
head upon the ground and his heels into the air it only 
remained for me to walk from him, as though I had risen 
from a chair, and wait until he had come to a better frame 
of mind. But it is not the donkey that troubles you, for 
the beast is as good as a patient, willing wife, but the sun 
that blazes overhead. This, you must remember, is the 
land of the Sun, where His Majesty is never abdicated. 
It may be cool in the evening and in the morning, and 
you will find heavy coats a comfort. But with the noon 
he comes in his power, and you ride over the desert with 
his full force upon your brow. In the matter of head 
dress we had various plans. The Doctor kept his stiff 
wide-awake. Jesse Grant wore a light j^eaked straw hat, 
swathed in silk. The others of us wore white pointed 
helmets made of pith or cork, coming over the eyes and 



264 GRANT'S TOUR 

over the neck. My helmet was a burden to me when first 
I wore it, and I took a hint from Sami Bey, remembering 
that this was his land and he knew how to battle with the sun. 
By the aid of the Marquis i obtained a coiffe de chapeau 
of heavy silk, orange and green, about a yard or more 
square. This I bound over my Turkish fez so that it 
would drape my face and fall over the shoulders. So when 
the sun came I had only to draw the web over my brow 
and throw the folds over my shoulders and ride on. Al- 
though much heavier than any ordinary hat, and appar- 
ently oppressive from its texture and the lapping folds, 
there was no discomfort. The power of the sun was set at 
naught. Whatever breeze might be stirring was sure to 
creep into the folds and toy with my cheeks. Then there 
was an artistic sense to satisfy. It lit up the landscape. 
You could be seen from afar, and as the dress was that of 
a high Bedouin chief — of an Arab officer of rank — you 
knew that you were more than a pilgrim ; that you were 
the symbol of authority to wandering desert eyes far away, 
who saw your flaming head-dresss treaming over the sand, 
and felt you were a great pacha. 

"Here," said Brugsch, as we dismounted from our don- 
keys and followed him into the ruins of the temples, 
"here we should all take off our hats, for here is the cradle, 
the fountain head of all the civilization of the world." 
This was a startling statement, but Brugsch is a serious 
gentleman and does not make extravagant speeches. Then 
he told us about Abydos, which lay around us in ruins. 
This was the oldest city in Egypt. It went back to Menes, 
the first of the Egyptian kings, who, according to Brugsch, 
reigned 4,500 years before Christ — centuries before Abra- 
ham came to Egypt. It is hard to dispute a fact like this, 
and one of the party ventured to ask whether the civiliza- 
tion of China and India did not antedate, or claim to 



ARO UND THE WO R L D. 



265 



antedate, even Abydos. To be sure it did, but in China 
and India you have traditions ; here are monuments. Here, 
under the sands that we were crunching with our feet, 
here first flowed forth that civilization which has streamed 
over the world. Hebrew, Indian, Etruscan, Persian, 
Homan, Greek, Christian — ^whatever form you give it, 




RUINS OF THE TEMPLE AT ABYDOS. 



whatever shape it takes — this the fountain of it alL, 
Stanley had been telling me a few days ago, as we sat at 
breakfast at Alexandria, of the emotions he felt when he- 
came to the sources of the Nile, where a trickling of water 
that you might arrest and imprison within the goblet's 
brim, set out on its mighty journey to the sea. I recalled 
the enthusiasm of my illustrious and intrepid friend as I 
thought that here was the source of another Nile that had 
been flowing for ages, that had enriched the world even as 
the river enriches these plains with all the arts and civili- 
zation and religion known to man, and that it was flowing, 



266 GRANTS TOUR 

and still flowing, with growing volume and riches. You 
see I am a believer. I came to these lands with reverence 
and have faith in their stones. I shall never know much 
about Egypt; I am afraid I shall never care enough for it 
to enter into the controversies about time and men that 
adorn Egyptian literature. I believe in the stones, and 
here are the stones on which are written the names of the 
kings from Menes to Sethi I. Sethi built this temple 
somewhere about fourteen hundred years before Christ, 
and, like a dutiful king, he wrote the names of his prede- 
cessors, seventy-six in all, beginning with Menes. Here 
is the stone which Brugsch reads as though it were the 
morning lesson, reading as one who believes. Here is the 
very stone, beautifully engraved, and, thanks to the sand, 
kept all these centuries as fresh as when the sculptor laid 
down his chisel. It was only found in 1865, and is, per- 
haps, the most valuable of the monuments, because it 
knits up the unraveled threads of Egyptian history and 
gives you a continuous link from this day to the day of 
Moses. You pass your fingers over the stone and note 
how beautiful and clear are the lines. And as you see it, 
you see the manifest honesty of the men who did the work, 
of the king who told all he knevf , and of the truth of what 
was written. I believe in the stone and feel, as I said a 
moment ago, a little of the enthusiasm of Stanley when 
he stood at the trickling source of the Nile. 

So we follow Brugsch out of the chamber and from 
ruined wall to wall. The ruins are on a grand scale. 
Abydos is a temple which the Khedive is rescuing from 
the sand. The city was in its time of considerable impor- 
tance, but this was ages ago, ages and ages; so that its 
glory was dead even before Thebes began to reign. Thebes 
is an old city, and yet I suppose, compared with Thebes, 
Abydos is as much older as one of the buried AzteC towns 



AROUND THE WORLD. 269 

in Central America is older than New York. When the 
temple is all dug out we shall find it to have been a stu- 
pendous affair ; but there are other temples, too, in better 
condition, and what interests us at Abydos is the city. 
Here, according to tradition — a tradition which Plutarch 
partly confirms — was buried the god Ostris. The discov- 
ery of that tomb will be an event as important in Egyptol- 
ogy as even the discovery of America by Columbus in 
his day. In the earliest times it was believed Osiris was 
buried here. To the ancient Egyptians the burial place 
of that god was as sacred as Mecca is to the Moslems or 
the Holy Sepulchre to the Mediseval Christians. The 
government has, therefore, been digging in all directions, 
and we started after Brugsch to see the work. Mrs. Grant 
rode along on her donkey, and the rest of us went in dif- 
ferent directions on foot. There had been troubles in the 
neighborhood — riots arising out of the bad Nile and taxes. 
So we had a guide who hovered around us — one soldier, 
whom we called, in obedience to the law of ^^hysical coin- 
cidences, Boss Tweed — keeping watch over the General. 
He was a fat and ragged fellow, with a jolly face. It»was 
quite a walk to the ruins, and the walk was over hills and 
ridges of burning sand. So the Marquis went to the 
village to see if the camels had come bearing the 
luncheon — a subject that was of more value to his practi- 
cal mind than the tomb of a dethroned deity. It was 
an interesting walk, to us especially, as it was our first 
real glimpse of the desert and of an ancient city. The 
General and the writer found themselves together climbing 
the highest of the mounds. It was rather an effort to 
keep our footing on the slij^jiery sand. Beneath us was 
one excavation forty or fifty feet deej^. You could see the 
remnants of an old house or old tomb ; millions of frag- 
ments of broken pottery all around. You could see the 



270 GRANTS TOUR 

strata that age after age had heaped upon the buried city. 
The desert had slowly been creeping over it, and in some 
of the strata were marks of the Nile. For years, for 
thousands of years, this mass, which the workmen had 
torn with their sj)ades, had been gathering. The city was 
really a city of tombs. In the ancient days the devout 
Egyptian craved burial near the tomb of Osiris, and so, 
for centuries, I suppose, their remains Avere brought to 
Abydos from all parts of Egypt. This fact gives special 
value to the excavations, as it gave a special solemnity to 
our view. As we stood on the elevation, talking about 
Egypt and the impressions made upon us by our journey, 
the scene was very striking. There was the ruined tem- 
ple ; here were the gaping excavations filled with bricks 
and pottery. Here were our party, some gathering beads 
and skulls and stones; others having a lark with Sami 
Bey ; others following Mrs. Grant as a body guard, as her 
donkey plodded his way along the slopes. Beyond, just 
beyond, were rolling plains of shining sand — shining, 
burning sand — and as the shrinking eye followed the plain 
and searched the hills, there was no sign of life ; nothing 
except, perhaps, some careering hawk hurrying to the 
river. It was the apotheosis of death and ruin, a fit man- 
tle for the sepulchred city below. I have seen no scene in 
Egypt more striking than this view from the mounds of 
Abydos. 

The sun was beating with continued fierceness, and we 
kept our way to the cluster of trees and the village. The 
Marquis, with illuminated eyes, informed us that the cam- 
els had come and the luncheon was ready. We sat around 
our modest table and feasted — feasted in the temple sacred 
to the memory of Osiris, and built by the pious munifi- 
cence of Sethi, the king who rests with God. The walk 
had given us an appetite and put us all in high spirits. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 271 

an we lunclied in merry mood. There were toasts to tlie 
Khedive, to Sami Bey, to the General, and the invariable 
toast which comes from gracious womanly lips — to friends 
and dear ones at home. Then Brugsch told us of Salib, an 
Arabian who had been for twenty years working at the ex- 
cavation. He worked with so much diligence that he had 
become entirely blind, and it was now his only comfort to 
wander about the ruins, direct the workmen, and perhaps 
trace with his finger many a loved inscription that his zeal 
had brought to light. Salib lived near the ruins, on a 
pension allowed by the Khedive, and after luncheon we 
called on him and took our coffee in his house. The 
coffee was seived on the roof, while some of us, weary with 
the sun, lay under the shadow of the wall and the date 
trees, and others sat about the courtyard, smoking, and 
Brugsch, who never misses his chance, improved the shin- 
ing hour to copy a hieroglyphic inscription. After an 
hour's rest, we went back again, very much as we came. 
But the journey was long, the road was dusty, and when 
we saw the flag flying from our boat, we were, some of us • 
at least, a weary, very weary, party. We had ridden fif- 
teen miles on donkeys and walked two or three on the sand, 
and the shelter and repose of the cabin was grateful when 
at last it came. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THEBES LUXOR RECEPTION THE MEMNON STATUE 

THE PALACE TEMPLE OF EAMESES DINNER AT 

LUXOR ON THE WAY TO KARNAK ITS ANTIQUITY 

THE LAKE OF DEATH THE LEGENDS OF THE WALLS 

THE BAD NILE AND THE CALAMITY IT IMPOSES. 

Our imaginations, as might have been expected, 
had been dwelling all these days on Thebes. We read it 
up and talked about it, and said, "When we see Thebes, we 
shall see one of the wonders of the world." We learned 
that Thebes was once a city that covered both banks of the 
Nile ; that it was known to Homer as the city of the Hun- 
dred Gates ; that it must have had 300,000 inhabitants, 
and that it sent out 20,000 armed chariots. It was famed 
for its riches and splendor until it was besieged. There 
was a temple of Memnon and the colossal statue which used 
to sing its oracles when the sun rose. Here was to be found 
the palace temple of the great Kameses, the only ruin in 
Egypt known to have been the home of a king. Here 
we would see the columns of Luxor, the twin obelisk to the 
one now in Paris, the stupendous ruins of Karnak and the 
tombs of the kings. Thebes alone would repay us for our long 
journeyings; and we talked about Sesostris and the Phara- 
ohs in a familiar manner, as though they knew we were com- 
ing, and would be at home. And when we became a little 
hazy on our history and could not get our kings exactly 
straight, and were not sure whether Sesostris was in the 
nineteenth or the twenty-ninth dynasty, we always fell 
back on Brugsch, who knew all the dynasties and was an 
ever-running spring of information, and always as gentle 

272 



AROUND THE WORLD, 



273 



and willing as he was learned. By tlie time we approached 
Thebes we were well out of that stage and were well up in 
Eameses, and knew all about Thebes, the mighty, 



our 



the magnificent Thebes, the city of a world's renown, of 
which we had been reading and dreaming all these years. 
And as Brugsch, leaning over the rail, talked about 




RUINS AT THEBES. 



Thebes, we listened and watched through the clear air for 
the first sign of its glory. There were the mountains 
beyond, the very mountains of which we had read, and 
there was the plain. But where was Thebes ? We looked 
through our glasses and saw at first only the brown caver- 
ned hills, the parched fields and the shining sand. We 
looked again, and there, sure enough, were the colossal 
statues of Memnon, two broken pillars so they seemed, 
with a clump of trees near them. Only the field, the sand 
and the hills beyond, only the same cluster of hovels on 
on the shore and the two distant columns. This was all 
that remained of the glory of the city that was the glory 
of the ancient world. 



274 GRANTS TOUR 

There was one, at least, in that small company whose 
imagination fell, and who could scarcely believe that so 
much splendor could only be this barren plain. But this 
is no time for moral reflections, as we are coming into the 
town of Luxor, one fragment of the old city, and on the 
shore opposit(3 to Memnon. We are coming to the shore 
and we see that we have been expected. The population 
of Luxor is on the river bank; all the consulates have 
their flags flying, and the dahabeeahs, of which there are 
five or six, have their flags up. Kight at the landing 
place is a neat three-storied stone building, painted white, 
with the American and Brazilian flags on the roof. The 
house is all hung with boughs of the date palm and 
decorated with lanterns. Over the door there are two 
American flags, and two soldiers are on guard. Evidently 
Luxor is in great excitement, for as we come to the wharf 
two soldiers on the roof fire six or seven shots from their 
muskets. This is our salute, and as soon as the plank is 
run ashore the Vice-Consul comes on board with the Gov- 
ernor and welcomes the General. Then we go ashore, and 
call on the Vice-Consul. We enter the house and pass 
over stone floors, strewn with Turkish and Persian rugs of 
great value. We pass into the best chamber of the house, 
and we hear another series of musket shots. In this best 
chamber the host points out a picture of the General, 
which he says in Arabic is one of his household gods, and 
that the day which brought the General under his roof 
will ever be a blessed day to him. We noticed also a pic- 
ture of President Hayes. We sat on the divan and the 
coffee was brought, and after the cofiee long pipes. Then, 
at the request of our host, we all went up to the roof of his 
house, where we had a fine view of the country, the coun- 
try which once shone with the magnificence of Thebes, but 
which is now only a valley between two ranges of hills — 



AROUND THE WORLD. 275 

a valley of sand and parched fields, liere and there a 
cluster of hovels called a village, here and there a ruin al- 
most hidden from view by the shadows of the descending sun. 
The town of Luxor, as it is called, is really a collection 
of houses that have fastened upon the ruins of the old 
temple. This temple is near the river, and has a fine 
fagade. It was built by Amunoph III. and Rameses IL, 
who reigned between thirteen and fifteen hundred years 
before Christ. I am not very particular about the dates, 
because I have learned that a century or two does not 
make much difference in writing about the Egyptian 
dynasties. In fact, the scholars themselves have not agreed 
upon their chronology. The only scholar in whom we 
have any faith is Brugsch, and when he tells us that this 
temple is more than three thousand years old, we believe 
him. It is not a very old temple, as temples go, and 
Brugsch shows it to us in a matter of fact way, saying, 
"Wait until you see Rameh." There is a fine obelisk 
here, the companion of the one now standing in the Place 
Concordia, Paris. There is a statue of Ilameses,of colossal 
size, now broken and partly buried in the sand. The 
walls are covered with inscriptions of the usual character 
— the glory of the king, his victories, his majesty, his de- 
votion to the gods, and the decree of the gods that his 
name will live for millions of years. I have no doubt 
much more could be seen and known of this Luxor 
temple but for modern vandalism. The town is simply 
a collection of fungi fastened on the temple. The 
French took one wing of pillars and put up a 
house when they were here in 1799. The English con- 
sulate is within the temple walls, defacing the finest part 
of the fagade. It is a shame that a great nation like Eng- 
land should allow her flag to float over a house whose 
presence is a desecration, a robbery, a violation of interna- 



276 



GRANT'S TOUR 



tional courtesy. There could be no more shameless van- 
dalism, and when one of our party asked Brugsch why the 
Khedive did not take the house down and allow the owner 
to take his flag elsewhere, like other consuls, the answer 
was that he did not wish to ofiend England. This is one 
of the many instances, I am sorry to say, where English 
influence in the East is only another name for English 
tyranny. The Englishman, so jealous of his rights at 
home, so eloquent in defense of British honor, sincerity 
and fair play, is the least considerate of the rights of others 
in a land like Egypt. He looks upon these people as his 
hewers of wood and drawers of water, whose duty is to 




THE OBELISK AT LUXOR. 

work and to thank the Lord when they are not flogged. 
They only regard these monuments as reservoirs from 
which they can supply their own museums, and for that 
purpose they have plundered Egypt, just as Lord Elgin 
j)lundered Greece. The Khedive has been trying to put 



AROUND THE WORLD. 277 

a stop to the business, and "with some success. But means 
are found to avoid his commands. It is really an act of 
fraud to take a monument or an antiquity out of Egypt. 
Yet Brugsch says, with natural emotion, that .whenever any 
especially rare discovery is made daring the excavations, 
the most valuable relic of all is joretty certam to be found 
shortly after in one of the European museums. 

In the morning we made ready for our trip to 
Memnon and the temple home of Bameses. We set out 
early in the morning — early, at least, for a party of idle 
voyagers who did not crave a reputation for rising. We 
had to cross the river, our boatmen singing their Arab 
music. And when we landed on the other shore, we had, 
thanks to the forethought of our consul at Thebes, a col- 
lection of stable donkeys, with a well mounted horse for 
the General. We were a little time getting underway. 
There was the escort of serving men with the luncheons 
on camels, who pushed ahead. Then came the General 
and his party. The party was composed of fifteen, as we 
had with us the Consul, the Governor of the province, 
the Marquis and Hassan. But as every donkey had two 
donkey boys, with a couple of girls, carrying water on 
their heads, running at your side — as there was a sheik, in 
stately turban, and five or six soldiers on guard — and a 
crowd crying for baksheesh and offering antiquities for 
sale, our tourists' group grew to be quite an army, and as 
we trailed over the plain we looked like a caravan. The 
antiquity dealers and water girls swarmed around us so 
that it was difficult to ride with comfort, and Hassan, who 
has practical ways of settling problems, went among them 
with a stick. Hassan's energy, however, brought his good 
name into peril, for the idea of beating the nimble, ragged 
maidens who flocked about us and filled the air with dust 
was revolting to the lady of the expedition, who summoned 



278 GRANT'S TOUR 

Hassan before lier and forbade him to beat the children. 
Hassan, who is as kindly a being as ever carried a scimeter, 
explained that he only wanted to frighten them and did 
not beat anybody. I quite believed him, for in the race 
the water girls, who were as nimble as a gazelle, would leave 
Hassan, who is stout and slow, far behind in no time. So, as 
a preventive measure, Hassan was instructed to make public 
announcement that unless the water girls and donkey boys 
and antiquity peddlers remained far behind where they 
would not raise the- dust, they should have no baksheesh, 
Hassan made this terrible proclamation from his donkey 
with many gesticulations and shaking of his stick ; and so 
we kept on with moderate comfort and peace. But every 
now and tlren some one of the damsels would steal up to 
your side under pretense of offerin'g you water and coax 
you with the large black wondering eyes, so that resistance 
was impossible, and in this way we came to Memnon. 

All that is left of Memnonism are^;he two colossal statues, 
the one to the north being the statue that, according to the 
historians and priests, used to utter a sound every morning 
when the sun rose. The statue is silent enough now, and is a 
monolith about fifty feet high. A good part of the base is bur- 
ied in the earth, but they loom up over the plain and may 
be seen — as, in fact, we did see them — miles and miles 
away. You may have an idea of the size when you know 
that the statue measures 18 feet 3 inches across the shoul- 
ders, 16 feet 6 inches from the top of the shoulder tothe 
elbow, and the other portions of the body in due propor- 
tion. No" trace can be found of the cause of the vocal 
sunrise phenomenon. One theory is that the priests used 
to climb into a recess in the body of the statue and perform 
a juggler's trick. I do not think so badly of the Egyptian 
priests, who, I suppose, were good men in their way, and 
not charlatans. You might find one priest in a multitude 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



279 



capable of climbing into a recess and calling upon the 
people to pay pew rent or tithes or something of the kind. 
But this sound continued for generations, and I do not 
believe you could find generations of priests carrying on 
the deception for years and years ; so I dismiss that theory 
and take another which Brugsch explains to us. The 
statue would be moist with dew at sunrise, and the sun's 
rays acting upon the dew would cause it to emit a sound 
like an interrupted chord of music ; just such a sound as 
you hear from a sea shell if you hold it to your ear. As 




EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



the sun is sure to shine every morning on these plains you 
could be certain that such a phenomenon would recur 
daily. I can well imagine how a freak of nature might 
be taken as the voice of the gods, and how humble priests 
would bow down to it and not enter into scientific specula- 
tions. After the statue had been tossed by an earthquake 
and riven the music ceased, which only confirm me in 
doing justice to the poor priests. After we had ridden 
around the Memnon statue and its companion — around 
and around them, so as to see them from all sides and have 
a full sense of their immensity — after we had rested a half 
hour in the grateful shade of the column, for the day was 



280 GRANTS TOUR 

warm and severe, we made our way to the neighboring 
temple of Medeenet Habro. Our ride to this temple was 
over a mass of sand and rubbish. But near it was a shel- 
tering grove of date palms, and the Marquis, whose prac- 
tical mind is never disturbed by any ruins, however 
ancient, quietly informed us, as an encouragement under 
the beating sun, that we were to have luncheon. 

Medeenet Habro was one of the great temples of 
Thebes, and it deserves special mention here as the only 
one where you can find traces of the home life of an 
Egyptian king. I had been asking Brugsch on many oc- 
casions where we could see some trace of how king and 
people lived in the early days. One grew tired — let me 
say it, if I dare, without irreverence — one grew tired of 
temples and tombs and these endless tributes to the valor 
of kings and the virtues of the gods. So when we came 
to Medeenet Habro we were shown the rooms where the 
great Bameses lived. This was the third Bameses, who 
lived twelve, or perhaps thirteen, centuries before Christ — 
who is supposed by some to have succeeded the Pharaoh 
who brought the plagues upon Egypt. To enter the pri- 
vate apartments of a great monarch is, undoubtedly, a 
privilege, and I was prepared for some ceremony in making 
our call. But the apartment was in the second story, and 
the ceremonies were something like those which a school- 
boy adopts in climbing a neighbor's cherry tree. You climbed 
a stone, and then a wall, and up the wall over stones which 
time and sightseers had worn smooth, and into a window from 
a precarious ledge. I suppose the great king entered into the 
bosom of his family by some less complicated method, 
and as I saw Hadden and Wilner climb the rock nimbly 
enough, I remembered that they were sailors, and could 
run up rigging, and that I would wait and take their 
word for it when they came down. But when I saw the 




w.iiffi*i,iiii^^ 



AROUND THE WORLD. 283 

conqueror of Lee deliberately follow, and scale the 
imperial chamber with all the activity of a young 
lieutenant, I was bound to follow. The room in 
which His Majesty lived, and which one reached some- 
what out of breath and a good deal covered with dust, 
was not an imposing apartment. It evidently feels the 
absence of the master's eye, for the bats have taken pos- 
session and the roof is gone. The walls are covered with 
inscriptions, but you see gentler themes than those we 
have been studying these many, many days. Here the 
king lived with the ladies of his harem. You see him 
attended by them. They are giving him lotus flowers ; 
they wave fans before him. In one picture he sits with a 
favorite playing a game of draughts. His arm is extended, 
holding a piece in the act of moving. I am afraid he had 
little trouble in winning that game, as his fair opponent, 
instead of watching the moves, is nursing his senses by 
holding a perfumed flower to his nose. This glimpse of 
the natural domestic life of the old days was refreshing 
after the battles and prayers that had followed us all the 
way from Abydos. So we go down into the sanctuary 
and take our luncheon, the Marquis, who did not climb 
the ruin, welcoming us with beaming eyes. We gather 
about the rude table and we drink the health of the 
Khedive, and home again. We have the same procession, 
donkey boys and water maidens and sellers of relics. When 
we come to the river bank, "Mrs. Grant summons all the 
maidens to her and distributes baksheesh. The' attempt to 
preserve order is vain. The water maidens rushed and 
screamed, and rushed at the purse, and when paid at one 
end of the line ran down to the other and cried because 
they had received nothing. Finally, after liberal disburse- 
ments and in sheer despair at doing justice to all, and not 
without a murmur at the savagery and selfishness of the 



284 GRANT'S TOUR 

ones she meant to aid, our gracious lady turned the busi- 
ness over to Hassan. As we pushed off in our boats, we 
saw Hassan making his small payments to a quite orderly 
and decorous crowd. But Hassan had a stick, and, alas ! 
that one must write it of so glorious a land, the stick has 
become an essential element in the manners and customs 
of the land. 

We had seen Thebes, we had even begun to grow 
weary of it. There was a dinner in State which had to be 
eaten. The General was tired and concluded he would 
not go. He had been riding all day to Memnon, the 
temple, and back again, and we were all dusty and tired. 
But when the General's regret was sent, our Arab host 
was so sad about it and so apprehensive lest his fellow 
consuls, who knew the General had dined with other 
consuls on the way, might miscontrue his absence. So 
the General went in state or in as much state as we can as- 
sume in this region, our naval friends in full uniform. 
When we went to our Theban dinner, the Doctor was ill, 
and the honor fell upon Hadden, who blazed in gold, and 
whom the waiters were with the utmost difficulty prevented 
from helping as the honored guest. Our dinner was served 
in the upper chamber of the house, and the host sat on 
one side of the table in a state of constant alarm, that 
made us quite sympathize with him. He was an Egyptian, 
with a keen, kind, swarthy face, with a slight gray beard, 
who had never been north gf Thebes in his life, and had 
never drank anything but Nile water. I suppose the 
honor of entertaining the Chief Magistrate of the United 
States, and the fear lest he might not do us all the honor 
he wished, oppressed him, and he sat in anxiety and alarm. 
The dinner was a stupendous affair, course after course in 
Oriental profusion, until we could not even pay the dishes 
the compliment of tasting them. Then came the coffee 



AROUND THE WORLD. 285 

and the pipes. During the dinner, which was composed of 
the host and our own party, we had music. A group of 
Arab minstrels came in and squatted on the floor. The 
leader of the band — I should say about a half dozen — was 
blind, but his skill in handling his instrument was notable. 
It was a rude instrument, of the violin class, the body of it 
a cocoanut shell. He held it on the ground and played 
with a bow, very much as one would play a violoncello. 
He played love songs and narratives, and under the 
promptings of Sami Bey went through all the grades of 
his art. But whether the theme was love or war, there 
came that sad refrain, that motive of despair^ that seemed 
to speak from the soul and to tell of the unending misery 
of their race. Mr. Jesse Grant, who has a taste for music, 
was quite interested in the performance, and sought to 
teach the minstrels some of our European and American 
airs. One of them was the " Marsellaise." The Arab 
listened to it and tried again and again to follow the notes. 
He would follow for a few bars and break down, break 
into the same mournful cadence which had been the bur- 
den of his melody. It seemed strange, this burdened and 
beaten slave trying to grasp that wild, brave, bold anthem 
which spoke the resolve of a nation to be free. It was 
beyond and above him. The music of the Marsellaise was 
never intended for the Lybian desert. If these people, 
oppressed and driven as they are, should ever come to 
know it, there will be hope for this land of promise, which 
has so long been the land of sorrow and servitude. 

We were to see the wonder of the world in Karnak. 
The journey to Karnak is only about forty minutes' ride 
from Luxor, and does not involve crossing the river. I 
was grateful to the Vice Consul for sending us the same 
group of donkeys who had borne us to Memnon. And 
when I ascended the hill, there was my friend Mohammed 

17 



286 



GRANT S TOUR 



AH jumping, and calling and pushing his donkey toward 
me. A good donkey has much to do with the pleasure of 
your journey, and Mohammed All's was a patient, sure- 
footed little thing that it made me almost ashamed to ride. 
We set out early, because it was commanded by Sami Bey 
that we should return to the boat and breakfast, and while 
at breakfast steam up the river. 




KARNAK. 



1 cannot tell you when the Temple of Karnak was 
built. Youisee, in this matter of chronology authorities as 
high as Wilkinson, Bunsen and Mariette differ sometimes 
as much as a thousand years in a single date. But my 
own opinion is that Brugsch knows all about it, and he 
places the first building three thousand years before Christ. 
Karnak, which was not only a temple, but one in the 
series of temples which constituted Thebes, is about a half 
,mile from the river, a mile or two from the Temple of 



AROUND THE WORLD. 287 

Luxor. The front wall or propylon in 370 feet broad, 50 
feet deep, and the standing tower 140 feet high. Leading 
up to this main entrance is an avenue, lined with statues 
and sphinxes, 200 feet long. When you enter this gate, 
you enter an open courtyard, 275 feet by 329. There is a 
corridor or cloister on either side ; in the middle a double 
line of columns, of which one only remains. You now 
come to another wall, or propylon, as large as the entrance, 
and enter the great hall — the most magnificent ruin in 
Egypt. The steps of the door are 40 feet by 10. The 
room is 170 feet by 329, and the roof was supported by 
134 columns. These columns are all or nearly all stand- 
ing, but the roof has gone. Twelve are 62 feet high with- 
out the plinth, and 11 feet 6 inches in diameter. One 
hundred and twenty-two are 42 feet 5 inches in height and 
28 feet in circumference. They were all brilliantly col- 
ored and some of them retain the colors still ; and you can 
well imagine what must have been the blaze of light and 
color when the kings and priests passed through in solemn 
procession. We pass through another gate into an open 
court. Here is an obelisk in granite seventy-five feet high, 
and the fragments of another, its companion. The inscrip- 
tions on them are as clear as though they had been cut 
yesterday, so gentle is this climate in its dealings with 
Time. They celebrate the victories and virtues of the 
kings who reigned 1700 years before Christ, and promise 
the kings, in the names of the immortal gods, that their 
glory shall live for ages. We pass into another chamber 
very much in ruins and see another obelisk, ninety-two 
feet high and eight square — ^the largest in the world. This 
monument commemorates the virtues of the king's daugh- 
ter, womanly and queenly virtues which met their reward, 
let us hope, thirty-five centuries ago. You may form some 
idea of what the Egyptians could do in the way of median- 



288 



GRANTS TOUR 



ics and engineering when you know that this obelisk is a 
single block of granite, that it was brought from the quarry 
miles and miles away, erected and inscribed in seven 
months. The next room was ■ the sanctuary, the holy of 
holies, and is now a mass of rubbish requiring nimble feet 
to climb. You scramble over stones and sand until you 
come to what was the room where King Thothmes III., 
who lived sixteen centuries before Christ, was represented 
as giving offerings to fifty-six of his royal predecessors. 
The hall is a ruin, and some French Vandals carried off 
the tablet — one of the most valuable in Egypt — to Paris. 
Altogether the building stone was 1,108 feet long and 
about 300 wide, the circuit around the outside, according 
to a Roman historian who saw it in its glory, being about 
a mile and a half. s 




EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTION— EGYPTIAN WARRIORS HASTENING 

TO BATTLE. 

This is the temple, but the temjDle was only a part. 
There were three avenues leading from it to the other 
temples. These avenues were lined with statues, large and 
small, generally of the Sphinx. I saw numbers of them 
sitting in their ancient places slowly crumbling to ruin. 
There were two colossal statues at the door, now lying on 



AROUND THE WORLD. 289 

the earth an uncouth mass of granite. One of them was 
almost buried in the sand, the ear being exposed. You can 
fancy how large it must have been when you know this 
ear was a foot long at least. Near the obelisk, some dis- 
tance from the temple, is a pool of water, on the banks of 
which black children are scampering and shouting " Bak- 
sheesh, howadji." This was the Sacred Lake. This lake 
had an important office in the religion of the old Egy2)t- 
ians. When an Egyptian died and was embalmed, his 
body was brought to the lake. The procession was a sol- 
emn one — mourners throwing dust on their heads, a priest 
sprinkling water from a brush dipped in a vase, very much 
as Catholic priests sprinkle holy water; attendants throw- 
ing palms on the ground, others carrying fruits and meats, 
incense and ostrich feathers. The coffin was borne on a 
sledge until it came to this lake. Here were forty-two 
judges, men who had known the deceased. Here was the 
boat, the sacred boat that was to carry the body to the 
other shore. If it could be shown to these judges that the 
deceased had been an ungodly man, that liis life had been 
a scandal, then he was denied sepulture. If it was shown 
that he had lived worthily, and the judges so decided, then 
all weeping ceased, eulogies were pronounced ujDon his 
memory, the body was carried to the other shore, and from 
thence removed to the catacombs to rest in honor and 
peace — in peace, at least, until Arab peasants rummaged 
their graves and made merchandise of their coffins and 
grave clothes, their ornaments and tokens, their very 
bones, just as these greasy Arabs who swarm about our 
donkeys are doing at this very hour. 

Wherever we find walls, we have inscriptions. The 
inscriptions are in hieroglyphic language — a language as 
clear to scholars now as the Latin or the Sanscrit. Brugsch 
reads them off to us as glibly as though he were reading 



290 



GRANT'S TOUR 



signs from a Bowery store. The stories will hardly bear 
repetition, for they are the same that we saw at Denderah, 
at Abydos, all through Egypt. They tell of battles and 
the glory of the King, Eameses, who is supposed to be the 
Sesostris of the Greeks. We have him leading his men to 
attack a fortified place. Again we see him leading foot 
soldiers and putting an enemy to the sword. We have him 
leading his captives as an offering to the gods — and offer- 




EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC INSCKIPTION-STORMING A CITY. 

ing not only prisoners, but booty of great value. The 
groups of prisoners are rudely done, but you see the type 
of race clearly outlined. We know the Hebrew by the 
unmistakable cast of features — as marked as the face of 
Lord Beaconsfield. We trace the Phoenician, the Estruscan, 
as well as the negro types from Ethiopia, and thus learn 
of the warlike achievements of this thirty century mon- 
arch, whose fame is carved all over Egypt, and about whose 
name there is an interesting debate. Again and again 
these war themes are repeated, one king after another 



i 



AROUND THE IV^RLD. 



291 



reciting liis conquests and his virtues, wars and treaties of 
peace. It seemed in the building of these temples that the 
intention was to make the walls monumental records of 
the achievements of various reigns. Thus, five centuries 
are covered by the reigns of Sethi and Sheshouk, and yet 
each king tells his own story side by side. When the 
walls were covered or a king wished to be especially gracious 
to the priests, or, as is more probable, desired to employ 
his soldiers, he would build a new wing or addition to the 
temjDle already existing, striving, if possible, to make his 
own addition more magnificent than those of his predeces- 




EGYPTIAN HIEKOGLYPHIC INSCEIPTION— THE BESIEGED CITY. 

sors. In this way came the Great Hall of Karnak, and 
in every temple we have visited this has been noticed. As 
a consequence these stupendous, inconceivable ruins were 
not the work of one prince and one generation, but of 
many princes and many generations. And, as there was 
always something to add and always a new ambition com- 
ing into play, we find these temples, tonibs, pyramids, 
obelisks, all piled one upon the other, all inspired by the 
one sentiment and all telling the same story. It was be- 
cause that Thebes was the centre of a rich and fertile 
province, sheltered from an enemy by a river and the 



292 GRANTS TOUR 

mountains, that she was allowed to grow from century to 
century in uninterruiDted splendor. What that spendor 
must have been we cannot imagine. Here are the records 
and here are the ruins. If the record reads like a tale of 
enchantment, these ruins look like the work of gods. The 
world does not show, except where we have evidences of 
nature, a ruin as vast as that of Karnak. Imagine a city 
covering two banks of the Hudson, running as far as from 
the Battery to Yonkers, and back five, six or seven miles, 
all densely built, and you have an idea of the extent of 
Thebes. But this will only give you an idea of size. The 
buildings were not Broadways and Fifth avenues, but 
temples and colossal monuments and tombs, the greatness 
of which and the skill and patience necessary to build them 
excited our wonder to-day — yes, to-day, rich as we are 
with the achievements and possibilities of the nineteenth 
century, Thebes, in its day, must have been a wonder of 
the world, even of the ancient world, which knew Nineveh 
and Babylon. To-day all that remains are a few villages 
of mud huts, a few houses in stone flying consular flags, a 
plain here and there strewed with ruins, and under the 
sands ruins even more stupendous than those we now see, 
which have not yet become manifest. 

We were told that we should see Karnak by moon- 
light, that the efiect would be worth the journey, and there 
would be the chance of shooting a hyena. But the moon 
was not in season, and the only two of the party who 
cared about hyenas, Mr. Grant and Mr. Wilner, were sav- 
ing themselves for the crocodiles, who were said to be in 
great force up Ihe river waiting to be shot. What a comment 
upon the vanity of human wishes to see the sanctuary of 
Sesostris gravely pointed out to sportsmen as the lair of the 
wild beast ! But Egypt is full of these suggestions. I 
I should like to have seen Karnak by moonlight, but as 
this was not to be, we made the most of our morning visit. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

A VISIT TO KENEH EGYPTIAN INDUSTRY LIFE AMONG 

THE EGYPTIAN FREEMEN ASCENDING THE EIVEE, 

TO THE FIRST CATARACT AND THE NUBIAN FRONTIER 

ASSOUAN THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRESENTS AN 

INTERESTING INCIDENT A MAN WHO RIDES SCENES 

IN ANCIENT BONDAGE RETURNING A VISIT TO 

MEMPHIS THE SACRED BULLS THEIR TOMBS BACK 

TO CAIRO EN ROUTE FOR THE HOLY LAND. 

Continuing their journey up the Nile, one of the party 
writes, on the 31st of January, as follows: — 

One visit worth noting was made to the town of 
Keneh. We tied up to the bank in our summary way, just 
as the wayfaring horseman dismounts and ties his horse to 
a trge. There is no question of wharves or quays or per- 
mission. When we tied, we all went ashore and picked out 
our donkeys. The boys had seen our smoke far down the 
river, and were there to meet us. The town was a mile or 
so off, and we rode over the plain. It was a s'ad sight, and 
Sami Bey told us what a calamity this bad Nile meant to 
Egypt. When the Nile rises in its season and floods the 
fields, only departing when it leaves the richness that it 
brought all the way from Central Africa, then Egypt is 
rich. The ground teems with fatness, and I could well 
believe Sami Bey when he told us how he had ridden from 
the river bank to the town through fields of corn and 
sugar cane, through fields of waving, living, joyous green. 
To-day the fields are parched and brown and cracked. 
The irrigating ditches are dry. You see the stalk stumps 
of the last season's crop. But with the exception of a few 

293 



294 GRANTS TOUR 

clusters of the castor bean and some weary, drooping date 
palms, the earth gives forth no fruit. A gust of sand blows 
over the plain and adds to the sombreness of the scene. 
Here are hundreds of thousands of acres which, in a good 
year, would give generous crops. Now they' give nothing, 
and the people who till them must be fed. A bad Nile^ 
therefore, means bad times for the people and bad times 
for the Government. For when there are no crops there 
are no taxes, and even an Egyptian taskmaster could not 
force barren fields to pay revenue to the Khedive's treas- 
ury. It is safe to say that a bad Nile costs Egypt millions 
and millions of dollars. The people must live on last 
year's grain, and instead of helping the Government, must 
be helped by the Government. When you remember that 
the Khedive is under many burdens — the burden of an 
enormous debt, the interest of which is in default; a 
burden of a contingent in the Turkish army which he 
must support, the burden of the annual tribute to the 
Sultan, over $3,500,000 a year, you can understand the 
calamity of a bad Nile and why it is that most of the T^ivil 
and military officers are in arrears for their salary — some 
of them for a year. Happily such a calamity as a bad 
Nile does not often occur. If it happened for two or three 
continuous years a famine would be the result. If the 
Nile ceased its office Egypt would have to be abandoned 
and these fertile plains given over to the desert. In fact, 
Egypt is only an annual struggle between the river and 
the desert. If ever the river surrenders, Egypt will be- 
come a barren, treeless plain of rocks and sand. 

The sand was blowing heavily as we entered Keneh. 
We had not been expected, so there were no ceremonies, 
and we could wander as we pleased. We dismounted 
under a grove of trees and went on foot into the town, our 
donkeys and donkey boys following after. We strolled 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 



295 



tlirougli the bazaars, which meant that we crowded our 
way through narrow, dusty passages where the tradesman 
sold his wares. The assortment was not varied — beads, 
grain, cloths, dates, pipes and trinkets. We went into one 
house where the potter was busy over his wheel. In Keneh 
pottery is an industry. The clay makes a fragile, porous 
vessel, through which the water evaporates in summer, 
acting as a filter and a water cooler. These vessels are 




POTTER AT WORK. 



grateful in the summer days, and there is quite a trade in 
them between Keneh and Lower Egypt. We had observed 
coming up rafts of stone jars, bound together with 
boughs, floating down the stream, very much as the old 
flatboats used to float down the Mississippi to New Orleans, 
laden with Western produce. The jars kept their own 
buoyancy, and one raft would require not more than three 
or four men to ply it. The potter was very skilful. His 
child moistened the clay, and with deft fingers he fashioned 
it into form — into graceful lines and curving shapes, show- 
ing artistic sense. The cheapness of the work when done 



296 GRANTS TOUR 

was amazing. The retail price was about eighty cents a 
hundred for small jars useful for the table. We went into 
a mill where the corn was grinding. It was the same 
process that we read about in the Bible — the horse going 
round and round, the grain crushing between an upper 
and nether stone and running into a pail. We went into 
one of the houses of the common people. Hassan led the 
way, and there was evidently no intrusion. A morsel of 
backsheesh would atone for any invasion, of domestic 
privacy. 

The house was a collection of rooms ; the walls made 
of dried mud and bricks. It was one story high, thatched 
with straw. The floor was the ground. The walls were 
clay. In one room was the donkey, in another the cow — 
a queer kind of buffalo cow, that looked up at us as we 
went in. In another room slept the members of the family. 
There was neither bed nor chair nor table. They slept on 
the ground or on palm leaves, like the donkey. They sat 
on the ground for meals and ate out of the same dish. 
The woman was sitting over a fire on which she was roast- 
ing some kind of grain. The children were sprawling 
about her. The woman was a Copt and not doomed to 
Moslem seclusion. The father stood at the door grinning 
and waiting for baksheesh. The welcome was as cordial 
as possible, but I suppose there were not a thousand slaves 
in the South who were not better housed than these free 
Egyptian citizens. Their life was virtually that of a 
savage, but they all seemed happy and cheerful enough. 
In this land Nature is the friend of the poor. You can 
sleep on the ground every night of the year secure from 
rain. You can array yourself in the scantiest of raiment 
fi'ee from the cold. You can live on dates and sugar cane, 
and, as far as the real ailments that come from want and 
misery with us are concerned, they are not known in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



297 



Egypt. The people are well made, well formed, with 
unusual powers of endurance, and naturally light. I 
would like to see any of our laboring men at home run up 
and down the Pyramid of Cheops In eight minutes, as I 
saw an Arab do for a franc. And we have no dam-sels 
among our own dear, tender, lovely maidens at home who 
could run at your donkey's side for miles and miles, bal- 
ancing a pitcher of water on their heads and showing no 
signs of fatigue. 




AN ARCH NEAR KENEH. 



We thought we had the town to ourselves to stroll and 
wander where we listed, when there came one to us in 
haste to say that the Pacha who governed this province 
had heard of our coming and would like to see us at the 
palace. And the General, who is as obliging a soul as 
one of the laden camels we are constantly passing, said he 
would call on the Pacha. We threaded our way to the 
palace, which was a low brick building, like a barracks. 
The messenger evidently did not expect so prompt an 
answer to his summons, as we saw him running ahead to 
tell his lord that we were coming — coming almost on his 
heels. We passed under a grateful row of trees, through 



298 ' GRANT'S TOUR 

an open space where soldiers were lounging about, and into 
the cool, open rooms of the palace. We were shown into 
the reception chamber and ranged on the divan. There 
was a long pause. The Governor was no doubt enjoying 
a siesta, and had to rub the sleep out of his eyes or don 
his uniform. In time he came, a stout, pleasant-looking, 
gray moustached soldier, in his full uniform as general. 
We had surprised him, of course, and he had to dress. 
He received the General with grave courtesy, and there 
was the usual exchange of compliments and talk about 
the weather. The General varied the conversation by 
expressing his regret that the bad Nile was on the people, 
and hoping for a good Nile. Wlien this was translated, 
as the Pacha only spoke Arabic, he threw up his eyes 
vrith a gesture of devotion, saying, " If God wills it, and 
may He will it." Then came the coffee and the pijDes, and 
we set forth. The Governor said he would accompany us 
in our walk, which he did. He directed that the state 
donkeys should be saddled, and they came after us. We 
then called upon the German Consul, who waylaid us and 
begged that we should honor his house. This officer lived 
in a style approaching splendor, and when we were served 
with pipes and coffee we noticed that the pipe stems were 
of amber, garnished with diamonds, and the coffee cups 
were of the finest porcelain, in cases of silver and gold. 
These ceremonies over, we came back to the boat through 
a gust of sand. The General rode one of the Pacha's 
donkeys. 

Assouan was to be the end of our journey, the turning 
point of our Nile trip. Assouan is the frontier station of 
old Egypt, on the boundary of Nubia. All these days 
we had been pressing toward the Equator, and we began 
to see the change. Assouan is a pretty town — to my mind 
prettier than any I had seen on the Nile. It is difficult 



AROUND THE WORLD. 299 

to make any standard of comparison among towns which 
are nearly all hovels, and so far as scenery is concerned, 
Nature in Egypt is in so grand a phase that she is always 
winning. But there was something about Assouan that 
attracted me. It may have been the grateful trees that 
hung over the Governor's palace — you see I call every 
governor's house a palace — or it may have been the Gov- 
ernor himself This gentleman was a Nubian — seacoal 
black — a tall, well formed, handsome man, in the latest 
Parisian dress. Our eyes had been feasting for so long 
upon man in various degrees of nakedness and rags, that 
this presence — this real presence of embodied clothes, kid 
gloves, cashmere and cloth, with the fez just tipping the 
left ear — ^was a sensation. It was like a breath from the 
boulevards, although our Governor seemed uneasy in his 
clothes, and evidently feared they would be soiled. These 
two early impressions — the trees and the garments — threw 
a glamour over Assouan, and now, in writing, with the 
memories of the trip floating before me, I find myself 
dwelling with comfort upon this frontier Nubian town. 

Of Assouan, in the way of useful information, it is 
sufficient to say that it is a town of 4,000 inhabitants, 580 
miles south of Cairo, 730 south of the Mediterranean. It 
used to be supposed that the town lay directly under the 
Equator. In the ancient days Assouan was a quarry, and 
here were found the stones which became obelisks, temples 
and tombs. Assouan's history is associated more with 
Arabian than Egyptian history. When Islam was march- 
ing to conquer the world, the Saracens made a town here 
and an outpost. When this glory departed, Assouan be- 
came, like most frontier towns in the wild days of men, 
the scene of constant strifes and schisms between the 
Nubians and Egyptians. There is a place called the Place 
of Martyrs, Moslem martyrs, and a mosque 800 years old 



300 ' GRANT'S TOUR 

and many Turkish inscriptions: — :"I bear witness that 
there is no God but God ; that He has no rival, and that 
Mohammed is the prophet of God." We did not visit 
these places, and were, I am afraid, more interested in 
knowing that it was at Assouan that Juvenal lived in ban- 
ishment. There was no house pointed out as Juvenal's 
house, and no tree as Juvenal's tree. All of which showed 
two things — lamentable lack of enterprise on the part of 
Assouan, and that the priests took no interest in Juvenal's 
character or deeds. 

In these days Assouan flourishes as one of the depots 
of the desert trade. Here the caravans came from Ethio- 
pia, and you find traces of desert merchandise among the 
bazaars. We visited the bazaars, Mrs. Grant and the 
writer doing some shopping, and Hassan going ahead with 
his stick, commanding all loyal subjects of the Khedive to 
fall back and make way for the pilgrims. There were no 
bones and no antiquities for sale at Assouan, a fact that I 
note with gratitude. But there was honest merchandise of 
a humble sort — ostrich feathers, ivory, gum arable, skins, 
ebony clubs, silver rings, lances and crockery. What 
carried us to the bazaars was the ostrich feather. This con- 
summate plume of our modern civilization is brought here 
in caravans from the desert. The best feathers are those 
which come from wild birds — those trained and tamed, as 
in Southern Africa giving out a flimsier and coarser fibred 
feather. I never knew there was so much in an, ostrich 
feather until I found myself the silent partner of Mrs. 
Grant in the markets of Assouan. I also learned some 
valuable hints as to the way of doing business. In our 
prosy country you walk into a store, you j^ay your money, 
you pick up your handkerchief or New Testament, or 
whatever it may be, and walk away. You ask no ques- 
tions, and it is very probable if you did you would have no 



AROUND THE WORLD. 301 

answers. The Arab sits in his cubbyhole smoking his 
pipe. His cubbyhole is about six feet square and two feet 
from the ground. He sits with his legs crossed, and some- 
times he is reading the Koran. Here he sits for hours 
and hours, unconscious of the world, perhajDS sustained by 
that fine Moslem precept which I submit to friends at home 
as a panacea for bankruptcy, that wliatever is is the will 
of God, and if it is His holy will that no one comes and 
buys, then blessed be God, the only God, and Mohammed, 
the prophet of God. 

You come and turn over his goods. He studies you 
over and over. He calculates your power of resistance as 
though you were 2. mechanical force. If you are alone you 
become an easy prey. The people were all so poor, so 
ragged, so naked, and what they asked was, after all, so 
small that she was always disjDosed to pay more than was 
asked. But in our bargains here we are thrown back 
upon Hassan's Arabic. You turn over your feathers and 
hold them to the light and turn them over and over again. 
Finally, you select a bunch and bid Hassan buy them. 
Hassan picks them up, layS them down and picks them up 
again, as though there might be worse feathers, but he 
had ne^er seen them; that he was selecting a feather 
museum and wanted a few specimens of the worst in the 
world. The dealer calmly looked on at this pantomime. 
Hassan asks in a contemptuous tone the price. He mur- 
murs the price — five or six Napoleons, let us say. " Five 
or six Napoleons ! " cries Hassan, throwing up his hands 
and eyes, tossing the feathers at the feet of the cross-legged 
Moslem and turning towards us with an expression of 
rage and wonder at the exorbitance of the price, and call- 
ing upon all around to witness that he was being swindled. 
" Well, but, Hassan," says our lady, as she takes up the 
rejected feathers, New York price lists running in her 



302 GRANTS TOUR 

mind, " I don't tliink five or six ISTaj^oleons sucli an exor- 
bitant price, for the feathers are good feathers." You see 
the poor merchant does look so poor, and he cannot sell 
many feathers in Assouan, and, of couse, he has children 
and so — and so. 

But this is the way trade is ruined, Hassan evidently 
thinks, but is too dutiful to say. So he explains that they 
always ask two prices, sometimes three or four, and that if 
we would all grow angry and throw down the feathers and 
walk away after him the merchant would follow us even to 
the boat and ask us to name our price. Well, we appre- 
ciate Hassan's motives, but we want to buy the feathers 
and not perform a comedy, and the trade goes on, Hassan 
laboring under the disadvantage of our not having acted 
as a proper chorus to his rage. I have do doubt that lack 
of proper support cost us in the end, for our Moslem 
tradesman evidently saw that it was God's will that we 
should buy the feathers. The trade proceeds. Hassan 
talks louder and louder and appeals to the crowd. As he 
talks in Arabic we ' only understand him as we would a 
pantomime. Finally the son of Islam asks what would 
the gracious lady give? "Well," says Mrs. Grant, "I want 
to give what is right." We name a price, say four ISTapo- 
leons. Then the merchant breaks into a pantomime. He 
takes the feathers angrily out of our hands. He, too, ad- 
dresses the audience — and by this time there is an audi- 
ence — upon the feathers. He holds them up and droops 
them into a waving, dainty plume. "Look at them! See 
how they shine! Look at their tints — white and gray and 
black ! Such feathers were never seen in Assouan ; they 
came from the far desert; they would be cheap at a hun- 
dred Napoleons." We suggest to Hassan after this address 
that we might as well go elsewhere; that a faith so firmly 
fixed would not move. "Wait a little," Hassan says; "he 



ARO UND THE WORLD. 303 

will take the four Napoleons, and would take three if we 
had offered them." So the debate goes on in fury, the 
anger increasing, until Hassan says four Napoleons will 
buy the feathers. We pay the money and go to the boat 
with our plumes. When w^e thank Hassan for his services, 
he intimates that if we had let him alone, he would have 
bought them for two Napoleons. 

It was very warm when we gathered under the trees to 
make ready for our journey. Sami Bey had hurried us, 
and the General was, as he always is, the first at his post. 
The Governor was there, and there was a suspicion, his 
clothes looked so neat and without wrinkles, that he had 
sat up all night to keep them nice. He brought the Gen- 
eral a despatch from Gordon Pacha, the famous English 
officer who has been made Governor-General of the Pro- 
vinces of the Equator by the Khedive, and who is now at 
Khartoum. But we are just within his provinces, and he 
sends his message of welcome, one great soldier greeting 
another. The General returns his thanks and we mount. 
The General is in luck this mornins:. The Governor has 
provided him with an Arabian steed — one of the animals 
about which poets write. This horse was worthy of a 
poem, and the General expresses his admiration at its lines 
and paces, saying he had never seen a better horse. Its 
trappings are regal, and a smile of satisfaction breaks over 
the General's face as he gathers the reins in his hand and 
feels the beatings of his animal's flanks. Sami Bey sug- 
gests that perhaps the General should pace the horse up 
and down, with an attendant to hold him, to see if he is 
perfectly safe and comfortable. 

Now, Sami Bey is as good a soul as ever lived, and 
always trying to make, everything pfeasant, and while he 
is sure about donkeys, has doubts about this splendid 
prancing steed. But our General is famous as a horseman 



304 GRANTS TOUR 

in a land famous for horsemanship, and smilingly says, 
''If I can mount a horse, I can ride him, and all the at- 
tendants can do is to keep away." We set out in proces- 
sion, our little trailing army in the usual order of march, 
the General ahead, Mrs. Grant at his side or near him, 
securely mounted on her donkey, the Marquis and Hassan 
near her, should evil fall. We come after, taking the pace 
our donkey gives us, having learned how wise it is to have 
no controversy with that useful and wise being, especially 
upon a theme he knows so well, the holes and ditches and 
yielding sands of Egypt. " Now you will see," says 
Brugsch, " how beautiful the Island of Philse is ; how it 
nestles in the trees, and how the temple stands out amid 
the crags and hills, as though nature had been the archi- 
tect, not man." Then he told us that Philse was quite a 
modern place — that the ruins were not more than two 
thousand years old, and that much of the sculpture was 
the work of the later Roman emperors, when those slovenly 
princes were the masters of Egypt. This was all the 
history connected with Philse, although, no doubt, a temple 
had been built in the early days and destroyed, and the 
one we were to visit was on its site. As Philse was on the 
borders of Ethopia, and in the vicinity of the granite 
quarries which supplied the old monarchs with all the 
stone for their monuments, it must have always been an 
important point. It was the pass through which the old 
invading armies of the kings passed when they invaded 
Ethiopia and brought home the prisoners whose negro 
lineaments we have seen traced on the monuments else- 
where. 

But very soon Brugsch came to us in sorrow, and said 
that we w;ere not to see Philse among the trees, nestling in 
the crags — to see from afar, and journey toward it as a temple 
Qf beauty. The Governor had gone on, and taken another 



AROUND THE WORLD. 305 

road among the abandoned quarries and tombs, and we 
saw nothing but rocks and hills, gigantic masses of granite 
heaped on the plain in the volcanic time. Well, we had 
been seeing so much sand and clay and limestone rock, we 
had become so weary — no, I will not say weary, but so ac- 
customed to the low, sloping river that it was like a 
glimpse of home to have the granite boulders throwing 
their shadows over your path and sometimes losing it, so 
that you had to keep a wary eye to prevent your limbs 
being bruised by the jagged stones. It looked like a bit 
of New England tossed into this Nile plain. The sun was 
beating with his flaming fury, and all that was left to the 
jaded traveler was to draw the folds of the silk over his 
brow and face, and jog on. It was the warmest day we 
had known, in a land where we have known only summer 
days. To my mind the granite plain as we advanced to 
Philse was full of interest. I thought of the ancient civ- 
ilization of Egypt in . its most repellant and selfish form. 
It was here that the Egyptians dragged, generation after 
generation, to dig out monster stones and move them down 
the river, ta do honor to the kings. For centuries the 
work continued — the most selfish work, I take it, ever or- 
dained by a king. For centuries it went on — Cheops this 
age, Abdydos the age after ; Karnak requiring twent}'' 
centuries alone. Here was the scene of their toil. Here 
the taskmasters carried out the orders of the king and 
forced the uncomplaining slave. I can well understand 
the horror with which the Israelites regarded Egyptian 
bondage if they ever came to Assouan to dig stones for a 
kingly tomb. I have no doubt they did their share of 
the work, and that over this sandy, rocky plain they 
trudged their weary road from year to year, their hearts 
fixed on Jerusalem, waiting for the hour when God would 
put it into Pharaoh's heart to send them out of the house 



306 GRANT'S TOUR 

of bondage. The glory of that dead civilization quite 
faded away, and I thought only of its selfishness, of its bar- 
renness, and it seemed only a fit retribution that the 
monuments which were to commemorate for ages the ever 
increasing glory of the kings, should be given over to the 
Arabs and the bats, should teach no lesson so plainly as 
the utter vanity of human pride and p)Ower. 

So we rode along the bank and dismounted, and em- 
barked on a dahabeeah, which was to ferry us over. This 
dahabeeah is under the control of a sheik, whose duty is 
to carry vessels up and down the cataracts. For seventy 
years, man and boy, he has done this work, and as he 
stood by the rail looking on, his turbaned head, his swarthy 
face tinged with gray, and his flowing robes, he looked 
quite handsome and venerable. He had twenty-five of a 
crew, including the children. There was a minor charac- 
ter in baggy clothes who gave orders, but the old man was 
a moral influence, and he watched every phase and ripple 
of the stream. I should like to have interviewed the sheik. 
A man who has spent seventy years in these Nubian soli- 
tudes, striving with a mad, eccentric river, must have 
thought well on many grave problems. But my resources 
in strange tongues do not include Arabic ; and so I am 
debarred. But we are now moving along the stream and 
wayward currents encompass us, and the sheik is no longer 
a mere moral influence, but an active jDower. He shouts 
and gesticulates and the crew all shout in a chorus, ending 
with an odd refrain, something like a prolonged moan. It 
is quite stirring, this strife with the currents ; and, although 
the sun beats with all of his power upon us, we stand upon 
the deck and watch. The General greatly admired 
the seamanship of the Arabs — an admiration which 
is justified by the manne? in which, surging through 
the perils of the stream, we nestle under the temj^le walls 
of Philse. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 307 

We land, not witliout an effort, and climb into the 
ruin. Pliilse is not specially interesting as a temple after 
you have seen Thebes and Abydos. I can thiiik of noth- 
ing useful to say about it except that as a ruin it is pictur- 
esque. Nature comes as an aid. The temples we have 
been visiting have been mainly m the sand, on the desert. 
But here we are in volcanic regions. Around us are piles 
of granite rock. The island is green and the date palms 
salute us as we pass. There are flowers, and, instead of 
bulging and sliding through sand, step trippingly over 
stones and turf. In the sanctuary we note three young 
Germans eating lunch. We pass to the other bank to see 
the cataract. This is one of the features of the Nile. The 
river here spreads into various channels and runs over 
recks. One channel is used for vessels ascendino- the 
stream, the other for vessels descending the stream. The 
one before us is not more than a (quarter of a mile long. 
The river is narrow, the banks are steep, and the stream 
rolls and dashes like a sea, the waves lashing the banks 
and roaring. I should call the cataract simply a narrow, 
heavy sea. The danger in navigating is from the rocks 
and being dashed against the banks. It is a relief, fresh 
from five hundred miles of easy, placid sailing, the river 
as smooth as a pond, to see it in this angry mood. While 
w^e are here we note men swimming toward us, each man 
on a log, with a garment tied to the head. They are na- 
tives who propose to run the rajDids for our amusement. 
They swim, or rather hold on to a log and propel them- 
selves into the current. It is hazardous enough, for the 
current sweeps like a torrent, and the least want of nerve 
would dash the swimmer against the rocks. But they go 
through bravely enough and come out into the smooth 
water below. Each swimmer, carrying his log on his 
shoulder and drawing his single garment around hi^ shiv- 



308 GRANTS TOUR 

ering loiii,J, comes for baksheesh. Hassan makes the pay- 
ments, but the crowd becomes so clamorous and aggres- 
sive, and would probably carry off Hassan, bag and all, 
but for the Governor, who restores order with his stick. 
We return to our donkeys, having had an interesting but 
rather wearying day. And in the morning, before we are 
up, our boat has turned its prow and we are going home. 

On our way home we stopped long enough to allow all 
of the j)arty but Sami Bey and your correspondent to visit 
the tombs of the kings. I had letters to write, and we 
were running swiftly toward mails and mailing distance 
from New York. We stopped over night at Keneh, and 
saw our old friend, the Governor, who came down on his 
donkey and drank a cup of coffee. We stopped an hour 
at Siout, and two of our missionary friends came on board 
and told us the news from the war and from home. We 
gathered around them in anxious wonder, hearing how 
Adrianople had fallen, how Derby had resigned and how 
England was to go armed into the European Conference. 
"I begin to think now/' said the General, "for the first 
time that England may go in." Some one proposes laugh- 
ingly that the General, who is on liis way to Turkey, 
should offer the Sultan his services. "No," he said, "I 
have done all the fighting I care to do, and the only coun- 
try I ever shall fight for is the United States." On the 3d 
of February we reached Memphis. The minarets of Cairo 
were in sight, and we found General Stone waiting for us 
with a relay of attendants and donkey boys from Cairo. 
We were all glad to see our amiable and accomplished 
friends, and we had another shower of news which came, 
to use a figure that is not quite original, like rain upon the 
sandy soil. We mounted for our last sight-seeing ride on 
the Nile to visit the ruins of Memphis and the tomb of 
the sacred bulls. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



309 



It was believed in the Egyptian mythology that the 
god Osiris came to the earth and allowed himself to be 
put to death in order that the souls of the people might 
be saved. After his death there was a resurrection, and 
the immortal j^art of him passed into a bull called Apis. 




i{\ 












'\ -^ 



SACRED BULLS. 



The bull could only be known by certain signs written in 
the sacred books and kept by tradition. These signs were 
known by the priests. When they found the calf bearing 
these marks, he was fed for four months on milk in a 
house facing the rising sun. He was then brought to 
Memphis and lodged in a palace, and worshiped with 
divine honors. The people came to him as an oracle. 
When he passed through the town, he was escorted with 
pomp, children singing hymns in his honor. The greatest 
care was taken of his life. At the end of twenty-five 
years, unless natural causes intervened, the reign of Apis 
to an end. Another calf was found bearing the sacred 
signs. The bull was marched to the fountain of the 
priests and drowned with ceremony. He was embalmed 



810 GRANTS TOUR 

and buried in the tombs which we visited at Memphis. 
Our ride to Memphis was a pleasant one, a part of it being 
through the desert. We passed close to the j^yramid of 
Memphis, which is only an irregular, zig-zag mass of 
stones. Brugsch tells us it is very old, but with no 
especial historical virtue. The ruins of Memj^his are two 
or three tombs and the serajoeum or mausoleum of the 
sacred bulls. One of the tombs was open, and we went 
through it, noting, as we had so often before, the minute- 
ness and care of the decoration. There were other tombs, 
but to prevent the modern travelers from breaking them 
to pieces they were covered with sand. What a comment 
upon our civilization that Egypt can only preserve her 
tombs and monuments from Christian Yandals by burying 
them ! 

We then made our way to the Serapeum. While on 
our journey we heard the story of the discovery of this 
remarkable monument. Mariette Bey, who still serves 
the Khedive, was directing excavations, and especially at 
Memphis. He had long believed that the tomb of the 
bulls could be found. So here he came and lived, working 
in the sand for two or three years, ivith a blind faith in 
his theory. You cannot imagine anything more unsatis- 
factory or discouraging than this digging in the sand. In 
an hour or a day a wind may come up and undo the work 
of months. Mariette Bey had his own discouragements, 
but he kept courageously on and was rewarded by the dis- 
covery of the most important of the Egyptian monuments. 
We heard this story as we groped our way doAvn to the 
tombs. We entered a long arched passage with j)arallel 
passages. Candles had been placed at various points. 
On each side of this passage were the tombs. Each tomb 
was in its alcove. The bull was placed in a huge granite 
sarcophagus, the surface finely polished and covered with 







If 



li 



i 



AROUND THE WORLD. 313 

inscriptions. These coffins were stupendous, and it is a 
marvel how such a mass of granite could have been moved 
through this narrow channel and into these arches. We 
lit a magnesium wire and examined one or two very care- 
fully. The tombs had all been violated by the early con- 
querors, Persians and Arabs, to find gold and silver. In 
most cases the cover had been shoved aside enough to 
allow a man to enter. In others the sides had been broken 
in. The inside was so large that four of our party climbed 
up a ladder and descended. There was room for three 
or four more. There were tombs enough to show that the 
bull had been worshipped for centuries. When we finished 
this study we rode back to our boat. The sun was going 
down as we set out on our return, and as we were passing 
through a fertile bit of Egypt — a j^art not affected by the 
bad Nile — the journey was unusually pleasant. After the 
parched fields and sandy stretches of the Upper Nile, it 
was grateful to bathe in the greenery of this Memphis 
plain, to see the minarets of Cairo in the distance, to feel 
that we were coming back to our old civilization. The sky, 
lit up with the rosiest tints, one mass of the softest rose 
and pink — a vast dome glowing with color. Starless, 
cloudless, sunless it was that brief twilight hour, which 
we have seen so often on the Nile and the memory of 
which becomes a dream. I have seen no sky so beautiful 
as that which came to us when we bade farewell to Mem- 
phis. We reached our boat and gave the night to prepara- 
tions for landing. 

It is hard to do anything for the last time, and we all 
felt a little sad over this close of what had been a brief 
and joyous experience. We had seen the Nile much more 
rapidly than is the custom ; as Sami Bey remarked, it had 
been the most rapid trip he had ever known. Now, when 
there was no help for it, we began to wish we had seen 



314 GRANT'S TOUR 

more of Denderah, and had not been content with so hur- 
ried a visit to Karnak. But, you see, we have letters, and 
we have come to feel the world again, and we can think 
with more content of our experiences, now that our hunger 
for news has been appeased. So we pack uj) and in the 
morning we steam down to Cairo. The General sent for 
the captain and made him a handsome present. He also 
distributed presents to all on the boat, including the crew. 
About twelve we passed the bridge and moored at the 
wharf. Our Vandalia friends hurried to Alexandria to 
join their ships ; those who had homes found them, while 
the General and party returned to the palace of Kasr el 
Noussa. Leaving this point, the party set out for 
Palestine. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

THE HOLY LAl^D ITS SACKED ASSOCIATIONS GEIS'EEAL 

grant's visit LANDING AT JAFFA THEOUGH THE 

HOLY LAND VISIT TO THE HOUSE OF DORCAS RIDE 

TO JERUSALEM GRANT's TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO 

JERUSALEM CEREMONIES AND HOSPITALITIES A 

WALK OVER THE VIA DOLOROSA A VISIT TO THE 

HOLY PLACES THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 

BETHANY MOUNT OLIVET MOUNT ZION CALVARY 

TOUCHING REFLECTIONS. 

Any journey in the East would be incomplete should 
the traA^eler forget or neglect to visit Jerusalem and its ad- 
joining villages. The City of David, emblem of the New 
Jerusalem, and the places made sacred by the feet of Him 
who "spake as never man spake," are surely worthy of a 
visit by one journeying either for 23leasure or profit. What 
hallowed, sacred memories cluster around the sj)ot where 
once the Redeemer trod. Surely, if there be such a thing 
as "Hallowed Ground" it is here. Writes Mr. Young: — 
Of course, to feel Jerusalem, one must come with faith. 
And if there be heathen questionings in any of our 
company, for this day at least we give ourselves up to 
faith. When I was on the Mle I found how much easier 
it was to be in accord with the monuments and the tombs, 
to go from Memphis to Thebes, believing — humbly believ- 
ing — in every stone. But EgyjDt was the house of bond- 
age after all, and when I came to Suez and looked over, 
the shallow water and the sandy stretches to the grove of 
palms where Moses rested after he had crossed the Red 
Sea, all my sympathies were with the Israelites who had 

315 



316 GRANTS TOUR 

escaped, and not with the hosts upon whom the waters 
rolled in a desolating flood. That is a question upon which 
one takes sides early in life; and although you come to see 
and hear many things on the other side, and to wonder at 
the many cruel necessities of the early dispensation, your 
feelings are set — they are a part of your life — and no 
amount of reason or historical research can do away with 
the impressions that came in the fresh young hours of 
your Sunday-school existence. EgyjDt was always the 
house of bondage, and you looked at the records of 
Kameses and Sesostris with a cold, curious feeling — as you 
would look at any extraordinary work of man. It was 
only history after all. But you come to the Holy Land 
with something of the feeling that you come to your home. 
Somehow you always belonged here — for every name is a 
memory, and every step awakens the long-forgotten 
dreams and prayers of childhood, and over all, in the very 
air you breathe, is that supreme, that gracious, that holy 
presence — enfolding you, as it were, with incense — ^the 
presence of Jesus Christ. This was the city of great 
kings, of dynasties of kings, of prophets and judges — 
founded by Melchizedeck, governed by Solomon, con- 
quered by Alexander — with annals surpassing in historic 
renown that of any city in the world. But all are forgot- 
ten in the presence of that one name which embodies the 
faith and the hope of Christendom. 

General Grant and his party had decided to visit the 
Holy Land. "f heir visit is described as follows : — We 
came to Jaffa an the morning of Sunday, the lOth of 
February. The Vandalia was waiting for us at Port Said, 
and as soon as we embarked she put out to sea. We had 
been absent just one month on Nile and other excursions, 
and it was something like coming home to find ourselves 
on the old deck among the familiar faces of our navy 



AROUND THE WORLD. 317 

friends. The sea had been stormy, but the General is a 
fortunate traveller and it went down in honor of his comins;. 
We ran over to Jaffa on a calm sea, and when we came to 
the town the sea was like a mill pond. This had not been 
before during the winter, and it was with a feeling of relief, 
amounting, perhaps, to thankfulness, that we shot through 
the jagged rocks, scrambled up the side into a crowd of 
greasy, howling Arabs, and walked into one of the dirtiest 
streets in the world. We were at last in the Holy Land. 
We went to our Vice Consul's (Mr. Hardegg), and there 
we found welcome and entertainment. There was a little 







JAFFA. 

archway of flowers and branches over the road, surmounted 
by the inscription, "Welcome, General Grant," and all the 
town was out to do us honor. The General, who moves im- 
mediately upon every point of interest, went to the house 
of Simon, the tanner, the house by the seaside, to which 
Peter came when he raised Tabitha from the dead, and 
preached that fine Gospel truth — the finest of all j^olitical 
truths — that God is no respecter of persons. The rain was 



118 



GRANT'S TOUR 



falling, but the wind was from the shore and kept down 
the sea. Our party for Jerusalem included four of the 
Yanclalia's officers — Lieutenant Commander A. G. Cald- 




PEASANT WOMAN OF THE EAST. 



well, Lieutenant T. W. Miller, Engineer D. M. Fulmer 
and ]Midshij)man William S. Hogg. All that Jaffa con- 
tained worthy of interest had been seen, and we j)repared 
for the Holy City. We had three clumsy open wagons, 
each drawn by three horses, and we drove out of the town 
into the plain of Sharon, at about four in the afternoon. 

It was too early in the season to see Palestine in its 
glory ; but the plain was rich and fertile, sparkling with 
lilies and scarlet anemones, Avith groves of orange trees 



AROUND THE WORLD. ' 319 

bending under their yellow fruitage, with almond trees 
coming into bloom. We had been these many days in 
Egypt with no forest companions but the drooping date 
palms, and we had been lamenting the parched and barren 
fields that came from the bad Nile. It was grateful to see 
Palestine, therefore, in its greenness, and even the rain was 
so homelike that we welcomed it and drove steadily 
through it until, when the sun went down, we were in the 
town of Kamleh, where we remained for the night. Our 
first lodging in the Holy Land was humble enough, and 
by the time we reached Kamleh the rain was pouring. Still 









RAMLEH. 



we were in the most cheerful humor, ready only to see the 
bright side. Even Caldwell — who had to put on his uni- 
form and sword and go out into the mud, with an Arab, 
carrying a lantern, walking ahead, and two soldiers behind, 
and various dogs howling in escort — even Caldwell, who 
had to call on the Governor, seemed to think that there 
never was so jolly an errand. None of us volunteered to 
go along. We preferred to sit on the large benches in a 

19 



320 GRANT'S TOUR 

room partly dining-room, partly kitchen, partly parlor — 
eggs frying in one corner, servants eating in another and a 
huge lazy dog very much at home. Caldwell came back 
in a half hour and reported the Governor in a fine state of 
health and propriety, and we went to bed in one room, 
four bivouacking on beds, that w^ere regarded with natural 
suspicion. Before retiring we had marching orders for six 
in the morning, and although six is an early hour we were 
all on duty. The General first at his post. It was seven be- 
fore we parted from Ramleh and pushed on to Jerusalem. 
There are' no interesting facts about Ramleh, except 
that it was a Saracen production. The tradition that here 
lived Joseph of Arimathea is not accepted. So we hur- 
ried on, our eyes bent toward Jerusalem, and looking with 
quickened interest as Mr. Harding pointed out to us the 
blue mountains coming in view as the mountains of Judea. 
Our road is toward the southeast. The rain falls, but it is 
not an exacting shower. The General has found a horse^ 
.and when offered the affectation of an umbrella and urged 
to swathe his neck in silk, says it is only a mist, and 
gallops ahead. We are passing from the plain of Sharon 
into the country of Joshua and Samson. The road 
becomes rough and stony, and we who are in the carts go 
bumping, bumping, bumping along, over the very worst 
road, perhaps, m the world. But there is not one who, in 
the spare moments when he is not holding on to the sides 
of the cart lest there might be too precipitate an introduc- 
tion to the Holy Land, does not feel that it is one of the 
most agreeable and most comfortable trips ever made. We 
are coming into the foothills. We are passmg into the 
country of rocks. The summits of the hills glisten with 
the white, shining stone, which afar off looks like snow. 
In some of the valleys we note clusters of olive trees. 
The feitility of Palestine lies in the plain below. Around 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



321 



and ateacl Is the beauty of Palestine — the beauty of 
Nature in her desolation — no houses, no farms, no trace of 
civilization but the telegraph poles. Now and then a 
swinging line of camels comes shambling along, led by a 
Bedouin. If we were to stop and pause, we might remem- 
ber that until within a very recent period wild men dwelt 
in these fastnesses, and that we might have a visit from the 




CHURNING IN THE EAST. 



Bedouins. But I don't think it ever occurred to any one, 
and if they came, they would find no weapon more dan- 
gerous than a cigar-case or a New Testament, which some 
of were reading with diligence in order to get up our 
Jerusalem and know what we are really to see when we 
come within its sacred walls. 



^ 



322 GRANT'S TOUR 

We liave our first biblical view when we pass the ruins 
of Gezer, wbich Mr. Hardegg tells us was once a royal 
city of the land of Canaan — that an Egyjotian monarch 
captured it and gave it to Solomon, when that wise king 
but widely disseminated husband married the conqueror's 
daughter. There is nothing worth pausing to see, especially 
in the rain, and Solomon somehow does not interest us, for 
our thoughts are all on Jerusalem and one greater than 
Solomon. At certain intervals we see a square stone guard- 
house, where soldiers oncejived to watch the roads. But 
the houses are abandoned and the soldiers have gone to 
war upon the Muscovite, and the road must take care of 
itself. We stop about eleven at the only place of enter- 
tainment on the way and are shown into a gloomy, damp 
upper chamber. There we make our luncheon on a pine 
table in primitive fashion, the Marquis unburdening the 
baskets and each one helping the other. Some of us walk 
over the hills for a short tramp while the horses munch 
their grain, and come back bearing anemones and butter- 
cups and daisies, which we lay at the feet of the lady of 
the expedition as an offering from the Holy Land. We are 
off an hour ahead of time, thanks to our illustrious com- 
mander. It had been calculated by experts that we should 
reach Jerusalem about sundown ; but our captain had 
planned an earlier arrival and that we should enter the 
sacred city while the sun shone. So we went over hills 
that kept growing higher and over roads growing worse 
and worse. Some of us walked ahead and made short 
cuts to avoid the sinuous path. We pass a village some 
way off, which in latter years was the home of a bandit 
sheik. We are told that this is the village of Kirjath 
Jearim, about which you may read in the Bible^ where, as 
Samuel informs us, the ark remained twenty years. If we 
stopped long enough we might see an interesting church, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 323 

but we are just now running a limited exj^ress to Jerusa- 
lem. We see beyond us Joshua's Valley of Ajalon, 
almost bidden in the mist, and remember how the Lord 
answered his prayer. We come to the scene of the great 
battle between David and Goliath. There were stones 
enough for the stripling's sling, as we can well see. The 
valley is deep and the brook still runs a swift course. We 
could well imagine the armies of the Jews on one side of 
the valley, and the armies of the Philistines on the other. 
It was the last ravine this side of the heights of Jerusalem, 
and one of the strongest natural defences of the Holy City. 

We have little time to meditate on these military 
achievements, for a horseman comes galloping toward us 
and says that at Koleniyeh — on the banks of the very 
brook where David found his pebbles for Goliah — a large 
company awaits us. In a few moments we come in view 
of the group. We see a troop of cavalry in line, repre- 
sentatives from all the consulates, a body of Americans, 
delegations from the Jews, the Greeks, the Armenians; the 
representative of the Pacha — quite a small army. The 
dragoman of our consulate carries a large American flag. 
As we drive on the Consul, Mr. Wilson, and the Pacha's 
lieutenant ride toward us, and there is the most cordial 
welcome to Jerusalem. 

We expected to enter Jerusalem in our quiet, plain 
way, pilgrims really coming to see the Holy City, filled 
with its renowned memories. But, lo and behold ! here is 
an army with banners, and we are commanded to enter as 
conquerors, in a triumphal manner! Well, I know of one 
in that company who looked with sorrow upon the 
pageant, and he it was for whom it was intended. But 
there was no help for it. So we assembled and were in 
due form presented, and there were coffee and cigars. More 
than all, there were horses — for the General, the Pacha's 



324 



GRANT'S TOUR 



own white Arab steed in housings of gold. It was w^ell 
that this courtesy had been prompted, for the bridge over 
the brook Avas gone and our carts would have had a sorr y 
business crossing. We set out, the General thinking, no 
doubt, that his camj^aign to enter Jerusalem at four had 
been frustrated by an enemy upon whom he had not 
counted. He had considered the weather, the roads, the 




JERUSALEM ON THE SITE OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 

endurance of the horses; but he had not considered that 
the Pacha meant to honor him as though he were another 
Alexander coming into a conquered town. So we trailed 
up the winding ways of the hill — the hill which sheltered 
Jerusalem from the Canaanite and Philistine. Jerusalem 
is two thousand five hundred feet above tlie sea, and even 



^ 



ARO UND THE WO RLD. 325 

tlien it lies beyond a hill that must be passed. So we wind 
around and around, up and around, steadily, patiently 
straining toward the summit. The mist and the clouds 
that had been hovering over our path finally enveloped 
us, and we could trace wdth difiiculty the path over which 
w^e came. The view on a clear day must be wonderful for 
breadth and beauty, and even now, with the gray clouds 
about us and the rain falling in a mist, we looked down 
the mountain's dizzy side and saw hill after hill sweeping 
like billows on toward the sea. As a glimpse of nature 
there w^as beauty m the scene to be remembered in many a 
dream. But we were thinking of the valley below, as 
scenes of events which have stirred the souls of Christian 
men for centuries, as the path of conquermg armies — of 
Joshua and David — of Alexander and Vespasian— of God- 
frey and Saladin. And here we were coming with banners 
and armed men, and at our head, riding side by side with 
the Pacha's Turkish lieutenant, is one whose name will 
live with that of the greatest commander who ever pre- 
ceded him over this rocky way. The valley passes away. 
We ride about a mile through a suburb, the highway 
lined with people. The General j^asses on, with bared 
head, for on both sides the - assembled multitude do him 
honor. We see through the mist a mass of domes and 
towers, and the heart beats quickly, for we know they are 
the domes and towers of Jerusalem. There are ranks of 
soldiers drawn in line, the soldiers presenting arms, the 
band playing, the colors falling. We pass through a nar- 
row gate, the gate that Tancred forced with his crusaders. 
We pass under the walls of the tower of David, and the 
flag that floats from the pole on the consulate tells us that 
our journey is at an end, and that Ave are within the walls 
of Jerusalem. 

There were ceremonies to be paid and returned, which 
I will sum up and dismiss at once. The Pacha called in 



326 



GRANTS TOUR 



state and spoke of the honor conferred upon Palestine by 
the coming of the General. The consuls came with com- 
pliments. The bishojDS and patriarchs all came and blessed 
the General and his house. The Pacha offered to send 
his band of fifty pieces and a guard to be in constant 
attendance. But visiting the holy places with a band of 
music and a military escort was so appalling an honor that 
it was declined with as much skill as possible to avoid 
offense. As a compromise, the General accepted the band 
for the hour in the evening when we dined. He could 
not avoid it, and it would be a pleasure to the people, who 
swarmed at his gates, and lay in wait for him with peti- 
tions. The Pacha gave a state dinner to which we all 
went — a dinner marked with the kindest hospitality. 
These ceremonies, or portions of them, quite used up our 
little time. The General intended to spend three days 




AN EASTEEN DINING-ROOM. 



only ill Jerusalem, for already his eyes turn toward Rome, 
where he expects in March to meet some of his family, and 
we must in the meantime see Damascus, Beyrout, Smyrna, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



327 



Constantinople, Athens, Corintli and Syracuse. We sat 
out in the afternoon to walk over the sacred places, and 
our first walk was along the Via Dolorosa. 

Some of us had stolen away in the morning before the 
ceremonies began, to walk over the street consecrated to 
Christianity, as the street over which Jesus Christ carried 
His cross. I am living within five minutes' walk of Cal- 
vary. I look at it in the morning from the terrace near 
my chamber door — a fair rounded dome, high in the air, 




VIA DOLOROSA 



covering the spot upon which our Saviour suffered. I do 
not enter into the question as to whether or not this was 
the real Calvary. Somehow one thinks it must have been 



328 GRANT'S TOUR 

one of the hills beyond the city, of which there are many ; 
that the cross would have been more imposing on the top 
of the Mount of Olives, for instance, than here within the 
walls near the market places, under a dome. But execu- 
tions, we must remember, are not pageants, and it would 
have been a weary road over the valley and up the hill for 
any careful centurion to send his soldiers. It is known 
that in the time of Christ, Calvary was without any city 
walls, that it was about sixty feet above the lower streets 
of the city, as high as Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. 
So that any condition of place and convenience is satisfied. 
We pass from our hotel on Mount Zion through a narrow, 
dingy street paved with jagged cobble-stones. We make 
our way with some difficulty. We stumble and slide 
rather than walk. We pass beggars who cry for alms, 
workmen at various industries, merchants selling their 
wares, camels and asses and beasts of burden. We turn 
into a covered way and slide and stumble along, and w^e 
are on the Via Dolorosa. The first place pointed out is 
the Coptic Monastery. Here Christ sank under the weight 
of the cross. We are going down the hill which He 
ascended. We come to the ruins of the Hospice of the 
Knights of St. John, Here is where Jesus addressed the 
women who followed Him. We wind around the corner 
and follow the narrow, slippery Avay — beggars crawling 
about us for alms, and Alexander, of the Legation, fair 
young Syrian in Oriental costume, bearing a sword, lead- 
ing the way. Alexander is in something of a hurry, the 
Via Dolorosa being of about as much interest to him as 
Broadway to a New York policeman. Here we are at the 
house where Jesus fell for the second time. A few steps 
further, and we are at the house and tomb of Veronica, 
who wiped the blood from His holy brow and left His 
image on her napkin. We descend a slippery jDath, and 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



329 



at tlie corner is the liouse against wliicli Christ leaned 
overcome by agony. You see a dent in the stone. This 
dent was made by the hand of our Lord as He stretched 
it out to support his burden. It is smooth and dark 
with the kisses of millions of believing lips. The 
next house is that of Dives, the rich man. At the cor- 




DAVID'S TOMB, MOUNT ZION. 

ner, Simon of Cyrene took the cross and carried it a part 
of the way, for which good deed his name became immor- 
tal. In front of the house of Dives is a stone, and over 
it a hovel. The hovel was the house of the beg-i^ar, the 
stone is where he sat in quest of alms, and under this 
archway where we now stand and look at the rich man's 
house Jesus stood and pronounced the parable which you 
will find in the sixteenth chapter of Luke. Here the road 
makes another bend, and we pass a broken column that 



330 GRANTS TOUR 

must at one time have been a stately ornament. The col- 
umn broke where Jesus sank upon it, and the fissure is 
clear and deep. We keep on until we come to a church, a 
bright new church, with an arch overhanging the street. 
This is the Church of Ecce Homo. It was here or here- 
abouts that the road to the cross began. There is a bar- 
racks on the site of Pilate's judgment hall. We go into 
the church, a sweet-faced sister 023ening the way. Behind 
the altar is an arch, and under this arch Pilate stood when 
he delivered over Jesus to the Jews and washed his hands 
of innocent blood. Here, in an enclosure, was the whij)- 
ping, the crowning with thorns, the decoration with the 
purple robes, and here also Jesus took up the cross which 
He carried to Calvary. We can readily see, as we retrace 
our way up the Via Dolorosa, that it must have been a 
rough and weary road to one rent and torn and bleeding 
and crushed under the cruel burden of the cross. Even 
to us — free as we are — wayfarers, in full possession of our 
faculties, it is a tedious task to climb the hill of Calvary. 

We descended the hill and ascended it again before we 
found ourselves in the company of the General. Mrs. 
Grant was vouchsafed the' disj)ensation of a donkey, and 
we all followed after on foot. When we finished the Via 
Dolorosa, we kept on outside the gates and over the valley 
of Jehoshaphat. The brook below is tne brook Kedron, 
of which it is written that Jesus, on the night before His 
betrayal, "went forth with His disciples over the brook 
Kedron, where there was a garden, to the which He 
entered, and His disciples." This is written in the eigh- 
teenth chapter of John, and we cross the very brook 
hallowed by His holy and sorrowful footsteps. We 
ascend the hill a short distance and come to a walled 
garden. A monk opens the gate and we descend. The 
garden blooms with flowers. The paths are neatly swept. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



331 



Around tlie walls are the pictures by wliicli the Catholic 
represents the way to the cross. Over the flower-beds 
droops a cluster of olive trees, ancient, and gnarled, and 
bending. It is not difficult to believe, knowing what we 
do about trees in California, that these are twenty centuries 
old. The General s^ys he does not doubt it, even from 
the random evidence of his own eyes. Under this tree 
Jesus Christ knelt and prayed, and made holy forever the 
Garden of Gethsemane. We looked at the tree called 
"The Tree of Agony." We pressed its knotted bark with 




1 iX 



Ti) ^~\ JiiMllliiiiT ' ' 



VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT. 





reverence and love, and though we were an idle, worldly 
groujo, fresh out of a busy, worldly world, there were few 
words spoken, and all thoughts turned to the sacred and 
sorrowful scenes which Christian men believe here took 
place. And if one could know the hearts of those who 
were about the tree, who stood around in silence, I have 
no doubt that he would know of many a silent prayer 
breathed to Heaven that in the hour of extremity the 



oo 



32 GRANTS TOUR 



grace tliere implored for sinning souls might be our 
portion, as it has been the portion of millions and millions 
who have gone before. 

The good monk gathered some flowers for Mrs. 
Grant, and for the others twigs and leaves from the 
Tree of Agony. We climbed the Mount of Olives to the 
summit. We entered the chapel said to be the site of 
the ascension — now a Moslem mosque. We went to 
the top of one of the minarets and looked far beyond to 
the land of Moab, the Valley of the Jordan, and an edge 
of the Dead Sea. In the farthest distance, just touched 
by the sunlight, was a mountain. We were told it was 
Pisgah, from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. 
We went on to the chapel which marks the spot where our 
Saviour taught the Lord's Prayer. We went into the 
magnificent chapel which a French princess has erected 
for her tomb, and around the walls of which is the Lord's 
Prayer in thirty-two different tongues. We kept on over 
the hill, over a fearful road, to the village of Bethany. It 
was here that Jesus lived when He preached in Jerusalem. 
Here was Lazarus, His friend, whom He called from the 
tomb. Here lived Martha and Mary, whom Jesus loved — 
Martha, who served Him at supper, and Mary, who chose 
the better part. We ride under the overhanging ruins of 
the dwelling in which Jesus found home, shelter, friend- 
ship, love; where He came for peace after the hard day's 
work in Jerusalem. We walked around Bethany — which 
is only a collection of ruins and hovels — passing over the 
graveyard where Lazarus was buried. We continue along 
the road that leads to Jerusalem again, not over mountain, 
but the one sloping near its base. It was over this road 
that Jesus rode when He entered Jerusalem on an ass. 
We are told also that here it was that David passed in 



■I 

i 



AROUND THE WORLD, 335 

sorrow when pursued by the ungrateful Absalom. But 
our thoughts are not with David, and we pause at the head 
of the hill, where Jerusalem comes in view. It was here 
that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and prophesied its destruc- 
tion, and we can well imagine the beauty of the fair city 
as it nestled on the hillside — the temple dazzling all eyes 




BETHANY. 



with its glory, the battlements and walls menacing all men 
with their power. Then we kept on down the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat and over the brook and around the city to 
another entrance called the Damascus Gate. It was only 
from thence a short walk to our hotel. The walk had 
been a weary one, but no one felt weariness, for every 
memory it awakened was a memory of the noblest moments 
in our lives, and every step we had taken had been over 
hallowed ground. 

I am living in a small hotel looking out upon an open 
street or market place where Arabs are selling fruits and 



336 



GRANT'S TOUR 



grain, and heavy laden peasants are bearing skins filled 
with water and wine. The market place swarms with 
Jews, Arabs, Moslems, Christians, and horsemen are 
l^rancing, and a comely young officer sits waiting in com- 
mand and calmly smokes his cigarette. A group of beggars 
with petitions in their hands crowd the door of the hotel, 
waiting the coming of the man who, having ruled forty 
millions of people, can by a wave of the hand alleviate 
their woes. The General is putting on his gloves for the 
ride to Bethlehem, and this is the ajuard that will bear 







BETHLEHEM. 



him company. Mrs. Grant, by various friendly processes, 
is secure on her donkey, and once the General is in the 
saddle the rest of the party will be up and away. The 
market place is under the walls of a tower — a huge, 
weather-beaten mass — which overlooks on the other side 
a pool. The tower is called the Tower of David and the 
pool is that in which Bathsheba was bathing. It was here 
that the King walked when his eyes fell upon Uriah's one 



AROUND THE WORLD. 337 

ewe lamb. A step leads to a wall and a gate. Beyond the 
gate a camp of Bedouins are gathered over a fire, and you 
hear the sound of the forge, for they are striving to fash- 
ion a hammer into shape. This gate is the gate through 
which Simon Peter passed on his way to the seaside 
when he went out into the world to preach the Gospel of 
Jesus. If I go up a pair of narrow stone steps, as I did 
this morning about sunrise, I am on the roof, a roof of 
stone, with a barrier around it. In these Eastern houses 
the roof is the drawing-room, and I can well fancy as I 
pace over the honest floor what fine company one might 
have with the stars and the hills, and above all with the 
memories that rest upon these domes and roofs, these val- 
leys and hills, this gray, sloping mass of houses and 




MOUNT OF ASCENSION. 



churches. You have for company all the memories that 
come to you from the pious hours of childhood, recalling 
the thrilling incidents related by Luke, how the man 
,stricken with palsy was brought by his friends to be 



338 GRANT'S TOUR 

healed of Christ, and "because of the multitude, they 
went upon the housetop and let him down through the 
tiling, with his couch, into the midst before Jesus." Pass- 
ing into the deeper recesses of the memory, we marshal 
forth the long-treasured history how Samuel entertained 
Saul on the housetop, and related to him the fell necessity 
that was put upon him to make his guest King of Israel, 
and Samuel, the Seer and Prophet, "took a vial of oil and 
poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said : Is it 
not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain 
over His inheritance ?" 

Thus passed away the hierarchical government to 
which the Hebrews were amenable, and which had 
become intolerable in consequence of the multiplied 
abuses to which they were subjected by their then 
thousands of rulers, the prolific fruition of a corrupted 
ovary. For your roof is on the crest of Mount Zion, 
and beneath you is Jerusalem. 

The visit to Jerusalem and its surroundings extended 
from Monday, February 11, until the following Saturday. 
As he viewed those sacred scenes, no doubt, the leader of 
the armies of the Republic remembered how the "boys in 
blue" chanted as they marched: 

" He died to make men holy. 
Let us die to make tiiem tree." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

GEN'-EEAL GRANT AT DAMASCUS — BEYROUT — SMYRNA 

A FAMOUS CITY ITS ANTIQUITIES A VISIT TO CON- 
STANTINOPLE THE APPEARANCE OF THE CITY A 

VISIT TO THE SULTAN HE PRESENTS GENERAL GRANT 

WITH A PAIR OF HORSES THEIR APPEARANCE 

grant's other PRESENTS THE SLAVE-MARKET A 

VI^IT TO THE BAZAARS THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN AHMED 

ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS MARS' HILL CORINTH 

SYRACUSE EN ROUTE FOR ROME. 

General Grant and his party next proceeded to the city 
of Damascus. This city lies on the east of anti-Lebanon, 
about 2,200 feet above the level of the sea, in a fertile 
plain near the desert. It is the oldest city known in his- 
tory. The Barada River passes through it, givin-g it addi- 
tional beauty. We find this city first mentioned in Gene- 
sis xiv. 15, where it is referred to as being the city of 
Abraham's steward. It was here that Naaman, the leper, 
lived. At the time of the Apostle Paul, the city was under 
the rule of the Romans, and Aretas, the Arabian, was its 
ruler. 

As early as 800 b. c, the fine fabrics of Damascus had 
become famous. The damask-silk and sword-blades are 
still so. There are certain points j)ointed out to travellers 
as being historically connected with Paul and his time. The 
" street called Straight " now bears the name of Bazaars ; 
there is also the house of Judas ; the house of Ananias ; the 
spot where Paul was converted, which is an open, green place, 
surrounded by trees, and at present used as a Christian 
burial-ground ; the place where Paul was let down by the 

339 



340 



GRANT'S TOUR 



wall in a basket ; and also several spots connected with the 
life of the pro2)het Elisha. The city is surrounded by a 
ruinous wall of ancient Koman foundations, " and a patch- 
work of all succeeding ages." Viewed from a distance, the 
city has a splendid appearance, which is not well sustained 
upon near approach. The houses are rudely constructed, the 




'^: 



A DANCING-GIRL OF DAMASCUS. 



streets narrow, and paved with big, rough stones, or not 
at all, and portions of them are covered over with mats or 
withered branches. The bazaars are covered ways mth a 
few stalls upon each side, and the different trades are 
placed by themselves. Although the streets present a 
somewhat rough appearance, yet the interior of the private 



AROUND THE WORLD. 341 

houses are very neat, the rooms opening from the court 
being decorated with carving, gilding, and all the adorn- 
ments that wealth and taste can provide. The courts are 
neatly paved, and are ornamented with costly fountains and 
beautiful shade-trees. The modern name of the city is 
Esh Shaum. It has at present a population of 150,000 
people, of whom 15,000 are Christians and 6,000 are Jews. 
The people are very fond of amusements, among which 
dancing occupies a prominent position. 

From Damascus the party proceeded to Beyrout. Here 
a very pleasant time was past. A few days later they de- 
parted for Smyrna. In entering the harbor of Smyrna, 
the travellers passed very close to Mytilene, the ancient 
Lesbos — 

" Where the burning Sappho loved and sung." 

The island of Scio was also in sight, where, in a few 
hours, Turkish cruelty and barbarism converted a land of 
flowers and civilization to a barren and desolate waste. 

Smyrna lies at the bottom of a deep gulf, at the foot 
of a hill, upon which an ancient castle dominates the town. 
The present city was designed by Alexander the Great, 
and built by his successors, Antigonus and Lysimachus, 
near the site of the ancient city of the same name, which 
the Lydians had destroyed about four hundred years before. 
It is better built than most of the Eastern cities. The 
consulates are neat edifices of stone, and are arranged uj^on 
the quay fronting the harbor. It is a place of considerable 
trade, and there are many Frank merchants residents in it. 
Almost all the products and manufactures of the East may 
be found here — silks, Turkey carpets, wool, raisins, Greek 
wines, pearls, diamonds, figs, oranges, etc. The population 
is chiefly composed of Turks, Greeks, Franks, and Jews. 

The Greek women of Smyrna are famous for their 



342 GRANT'S TOUR 

charms. Their dress is singularly picturesque, being the 
same costume as that of the better class of the Turkish 
women. It consists of loose, large trousers, falling to the 
ankle, and vests of velvet, bound round the waist by rich 
embroidered zones, confined with clasps of gold or silver. 
Their black tresses wave unconfined over their shoulders, 
or are bound round the head, intertwined with roses. The 
stature of the Greek women of Smyrna is rather below 
than above the ordinary height. Their beauty lies in the 
Grecian face, the coal-black eyes, that sparkle like dia- 
monds set in a field of vermihon, and the combined ex- 
pression of classically moulded features, fresh colors, and 
the soft, languid air, which the climate gives to the form 
and countenance. 

The antiquities of Smyrna are few and uninteresting. 
A little stream, the Meles, flows back of the town ; upon 
its banks Homer is said to have been, born. The country 
around Smyrna is very poorly cultivated, and large j)or- 
tions of it are entirely neglected. The city contains a 
number of delightful gardens, in which the fig and orange 
grow with great luxuriance. 

The next point visited by the travellers was Constan- 
tinople. The steamer rounded the Seraglio Point, and 
sweeping into the bold expanse which the Bosphorus forms 
023posite the city, dropped anchor off the mouth of the 
Golden Horn. The first step upon the shore reminds one 
that he is in the East. The costume is oriental, the lan- 
guage has nothing in its syllables or sounds that resemble 
the provengal tongues, and there appears to be an air of 
luxurious enjoyment and repose in 'all around, that con- 
trasts strikingly with the anxious air of the busy pojoula- 
tions of the cities of Western Europe. 

Almost touching the water was a cafe, cooled by a foun- 
tain, and the umbrageous boughs of the wide-spreading 









t~ 






If - 




I'l' 



liillriirir'W' 



HllPi^' 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



343 



platanus tree. Lounging on clivans were a number of 
Turks, with white turbans and long beards, smoking the 
nargile, or water-^Dipe, and seeking nervous excitement 
in frequent draughts of coffee, or in the inhalation of the 
intoxicating fumes of hashish. Near by was a beautiful 
fountain, erected by some kind Turk who was seeking en- 
trance into the Mussulman heaven by doing good to man, 
and a mosque from the minarets of which the muezzin was 
calling the faithful to prayer. " There is no god but God, 
and Mohammed is His prophet," was the cry that was float- 
ing on the air as the travellers landed. 




EXTERIOR VIEW OF A TURKISH HOUSE. 

The interior of Constantinople by no means corresponds 
with the expectations which one is led to entertain from 
the splendor of its appearance as seen from the Bosphorus. 
The streets are narrow, and paved with stones which appear 
as though they had been scattered at random, simply to cover 
the nakedness of the earth. The houses are of wood, and 
so wretchedly built, that they afford but little shelter 
against the elements. Fires at Constantinople, where the 



346 



GRANT'S TOUR 



buildings are of frame, are, of course, very destructive, 
sometimes sweeping away squares of houses at a time. 
There are two lofty towers which overlook the city, where 
the watchmen are stationed night and day to sound the 
alarm of fire ; but a conflagration rarely breaks out which 
does not destroy a square of buildings. The Turks will 
sometimes make an effort to arrest the flames, but if over- 
mastered, they will quietly fold their arms, and exclaiming 




INTERIOR VIEW OF A TURKISH HOUSE. 

^^ Allah herim" " God is great," leave things to take their 
course. 

After sunset, the city is enveloped in darkness, as there 
is not a single lamp in the streets to lighten the path of the 
wanderer with the glimmer of a friendly ray. If you do 
not wish to be devoured alive by the troops of savage dogs 
which infest the streets, you must carry a lantern ; and if 
your light should happen to go out, you must make the 
best of it. A distinguished traveller says : — " For myself, 
in a desperate battle which I had with some canine ruffians, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 347. 

in passing through one of tlie cemeteries late at night, my 
light was not only extinguished, but being overpowered by 
fearful odds, I was obliged to take to my heels, priding my- 
self more on my chances to escape from their fangs than 
upon the glory of vanquishing my foes." 

The channel of the Golden Horn, which comes in from 
the Bosphorus, divides Constantinople in two parts. On 
the west side is Stamboul, Constantinople proper, where the 
Turks reside, and where the principal bazaars are. On the 
east side are the suburbs of Galata and Pera. Galata lies 
at the foot of the hill, and is the port to which all Frank 
vessels resort. It is the residence chiefly of Greeks, while 
higher up the hill you pass a kind of neutral ground, occu- 
pied by the bankers and large merchants of all nations ; 
and continuing your walk higher up, you enter the pre- 
cincts of Pera, which contains the private residences of the 
Frank merchants, and the offices of the European ambas- 
sadors. Most of the foreign ministers, however, live on the 
shores of the Bosphorus, at Therapia, or in the surrounding 
country, only resorting to Pera a few hours during the 
day. The hill is occupied with buildings from the water's 
edge to the summit, and it is somewhat puzzling to know 
where Galata ends or Pera begins. 

When General Grant reached Constantinople his first 
visit was paid to the Sultan, who immediately ordered Mu- 
nir Bey, the Master of Ceremonies, to present to the Gen- 
eral an Arab horse from the imperial stables. One was 
chosen and set aside for him, but, owing to some misunder- 
standing, the gift horse was not sent, and the Vandalia 
sailed without him. Afterwards, the question having been 
revived, the steed in question was hunted up among the 
570 horses which composed the imperial stud. He was 
found, and, accompanied by a second horse, transferred to 
the care of the officers of the American Legation, by whom 



348 GRANT'S TOUR 

they were shipped on board the Norman Monarch. They 
were housed between the decks, j^i'ovided with canvas belts 
to swing in in rough weather, and in every way treated as 
cabin passengers, a man being detailed to care for them. 
They are said to have endured the long voyage without 
showing any signs of discomfort or fatigue, and were de- 
scribed by one of the prominent horsemen at Suffolk Park 
as being in perfect trim and models of beauty. They are 
in many respects unlike the blooded American horse. 
They are about fifteen hands in height, and of a graceful 
and well-rounded, though wiry and strong, figure. Both 
the animals are of a beautiful dapple-gray color, with a 
soft skin and shiny coat. Their manes and tails are of a 
dark color and very long. A wide difference from the 
average European or American animal is said to be dis- 
cernible in every feature, and the eye, ear, and nostril are 
indicative of some particular quality, such as shrewdness, 
quickness, and wonderful intelligence. The neck is arched 
and the head is held very high. 

These beautiful creatures were consigned to the care 
of George W. Childs, Esq., of Philadelphia, who at once 
caused the old shoes to be removed and new ones put on. 
The shoes taken from their feet were very thin plates of 
iron, without corks of any kind. They covered all parts 
of the hoof except the frog. A circular hole was pierced 
for that. These specimens of Turkish handicraft were 
carefully preserved upon being removed, and will event- 
ually appear on the walls of General Grant's billiard-room. 
They are to be brightened and decorated in fine style. 
One of them was given to Mr. Bishop, of the firm of 
horse-shoers. He refused %^ for it. It is said that $5 
were offered for one of the shoe-nails. The horses' feet 
had to be trimmed. This as well as the subsequent shoeing 
was done under the supervision of a veterinary doctor. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 349 

The shoes were very light ones, made particularly for the 
purpose. 

General Grant has also placed all the presents which 
he has received while abroad under the care of Mr. Childs. 
They were for a time on exhibition in Memorial Hall, 
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. There they proved one 
of the most attractive centres of interest and were visited 
by thousands of people. The gifts consist of twenty-four 
engrossed and illuminated scrolls, albums and portfolios, 
containing addresses of welcome from working-men and 
corporations, the freedom of cities and other expressions 
of esteem for General Grant. Some are in gold and some 
in silver caskets of very rich workmanship. In some in- 
stances the seals also are enclosed in gold cases. One of 
the most interesting souvenirs is a beautifully carved box 
made of mulberry wood from the tree at Stratford-on- 
Avon, planted by Shakespeare, and presented to General 
Grant by the corporation of the town. 

One of the most interesting places in Constantinople is 
the Slave-Market. To this no Frank is allowed to enter 
without an authorized janissary of one of the embassies. 
The visitor upon entering is at once saluted with " Back- 
shish! Backshish!" The area of the square was filled 
with groups of Nubian and Abyssinian slaves, mostly 
children, and in a state of almost perfect nudity. They 
were crouched together in groups, but seemed to be by no 
means disconsolate at their lot. They were cheerful and 
full of merriment. Around the court-yard, under the 
sheds, were compartments for the better order of slaves. 
These were chiefly African women. We saw only two 
white female slaves, and these were Georgians, destined for 
the harems of the rich. We were very solicitous to get 
a look at these Georgian beauties, but were only indulged 
with a glance through the bars of their cages. We saw 



359 GRANT'S TOUR 

only tlie bright black eyes of these imprisoned ones ; tbey 
were merry enough. 

The slave-merchants were quietly reposing on carpets 
under the sheds, smoking, and answering with usual Turk- 
ish nonchalance the propositions of customers. Their 
stoical indifference to the condition of the slaves, and the 
manner in which they handled and spoke of them as mere 
merchandise, disgusted us, and we were glad to leave the 
place where humanity sinks to the level of the brute crea- 
tion. 

Our next visit was to the bazaars. These consist of a 
long range of shops running parallel with each other, with 
an intervening paved avenue dividing the two rows ; the 
avenue is covered over. There are numerous bazaars, each 
division being appropriated to the sale of different objects. 
There is the silk bazaar, the provision bazaar, the arm ba- 
zaar, etc. The purchaser is not, therefore, obliged to wan- 
der through the whole range of bazaars to seek the object 
of his wants, but at once goes to a particular bazaar and 
finds it. The shops are very small, and contain but scanty 
stocks ; but there is a great number of them, which may, 
in some degree, compensate for the lack of quantity in their 
stock. 

The next point visited was the Mosque of the Sultan 
Ahmed. The exterior walls of this, as the walls of all 
other mosques, are painted white. From the centre rises 
a hemispherical dome, and at the four corners of the build- 
ing shoot up tall minarets, the points of which, tipped with 
gold, appear lost in the air. Passing through an open 
court-yard, we came to the portal of the mosque. We 
pulled off our boots, slid our feet into yellow slippers, the 
color worn only by the faithful, removed our hats, and en- 
tered. The interior was very plain ; the floor was spread 
with rich carpets, and variously-colored glass lamps, like 






PTITT™ linil 



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I film > ," t* -^jt • 

*' .i , ,1 h' .' 
.;» '. . . 



r w., . 

It . > VI I 4i -^ I 










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AROUND THE WORLD. 



351 



those in public gardens, were suspended around the walls, 
with here and there an ostrich-egg, the offering of some 
pious devotee. A pulpit of carved wood faced the east. 
Several Turks were prostrating themselves in prayer upon 
the carpets, the countenance turned to the sacred east. 
From the floor to the ceiling the breadth and width of the 
great space beneath the roof was unbroken by a gallery or 
any other object. The roof rested upon arches which 
sprang from the walls. This great void, with the over- 
hanging roof unsustained by a single j)illar, had a most 
majestic effect, and I have rarely seen boldness and sim- 
plicity of architecture so happily combined as in this 
mosque. The walls were naked of ornaments, with the 
exception of a rude drawing of the Caaba at Mecca. 




THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS. 



In the centre of the court-yard of the mosque was a 
beautiful fountain, ornamented with that light tracery work 
which is characteristic of Saracenic architecture. An im- 
mense number of pigeons had assembled there at that time 
to be fed, as some kind Mussulman had left a legacy to 
procure grain for the daily feeding of the pigeons which 



854 



GRANT'S TOUR 



belonged to the mosque. They nearly covered the yard, 
and children were walking about in the midst of them; 
without causing them the least alarm. Such is the friend- 
tship between man and the brute creation in Mussulman 
countries. 

The next point of interest was the city of Athens. 
Among the points visited by the travellers was the Acrop- 




THE THEATKE OF BACCHUS. 



olis. It is thus described : — Having obtained the neces- 
sary ticket of admission, we ascended it by a pathway that 
winds up the eastern side. On our way we passed the 
Theatre of Bacchus, which lies near the foot of the Acrop- 
olis, on the same side. Here were performed the trage- 
dies of Sophocles, ^schylus, and Euripides. The seats 
of the spectators and a part of the fagade yet remain. The 
theatre was open to the air, and/ like all the other Grecian 



AROUND THE WORLD. 355 

theatres, it was placed upon the side of a hill. The seats 
for the audience were cut out of the earth, and rose in 
amphitheatrical form from the scene, which lay at the foot 
of the hill. In this theatre Demosthenes received the 
crown of gold which was voted to him for his repair of 
the fortifications, and for other services. 

The Acropolis is a precipitous hill of rock rising from 
the bosom of the Athenian plain. Like most of the other 
Greek towns, Athens was built around the base of the 



1 

A 







CORINTH. 



Acropolis, which served as a citadel to dominate the country 
for leagues around. Tlie Acropolis is about eight hundred 
feet high, and some four hundred broad. Its crowning 
glory was the Parthenon. This magnificent building, 
which, even in its present ruined condition, commanded 
the admiration of every beholder, was in its perfect state 
the finest piece of architecture in the ancient world. It 
was built of the purest Pentelican marble, which, to this 
day, though discolored by the dews and rains of more than 
ten centuries, yet contains most of its original purity. 



356 GRAA'T'S TOUR. 

A visit was also paid to Mars' Hill, where Paul preached to 
the people, declaring " unto them Him whom they ignorantly 
worship j)ed, the Lord of heaven and earth, who dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands, and whose Godhead was 
not like gold, or silver, or stone graven by art and man's 
device." 

From Athens the party proceeded to Corinth. The 
city is surrounded by a wall with embrasures for cannon. 
There were but few pieces of cannon on the walls. We 
observed, however, some long twenty-four-pounders, richly 
ornamented with the Venetian arms, which had remained in 
the fortress since its capture by the Turks. After a few 
clays spent in rambling over the old historic grounds in the 
vicinity of the city, and viewing all places of interest in 
the city itself, the travellers de|)arted for Syracuse. A 
short visit was made at the latter point, after which they 
proceeded to Rome, where they expected to meet certain 
friends who had promised to be there. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

GEN"EEAL GKANT AT ROME HOISTORS FROM KING HUM- 
BERT RECEPTION AT FLORENCE ARRIVAL AT 

VENICE — THE CITY OF THE DOGE AN INTERESTING 

HISTORY THE "GOLDEN BOOK" THE FOUR ORDERS 

MICHELI STENO'S REVENGE THE APOSTLES AND 

EVANGELISTS MILAN, THE ITALIAN PARIS A BEAU- 
TIFUL CITY THE CORSO THE CATHEDRAL THE 

RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE CITY THE AMBROSIAN 

LIBRARY THE CHURCH OF ST. AMBROSE — -THE IRON 

CROWN OF THE LOMBARD KINGS LEONARDO DA 

VINCl's " LAST SUPPER " THE ARCH OF PEACE 

THE TEMPLE OF CREMATION AN INTERESTING MU- 
SEUM. 

/ 

Continuing his journey along the shores of the Medi- 
terranean, General Grant visited the beautiful cities which 
dot the coast, beholding the beautiful works of art, and 
receiving honors from the high and the low. During his 
stay in Rome, King Humbert gave him a magnificent 
dinner, at which all the Italian Ministers were present. 
Speeches were made, toasts drank, and every one seemed 
determined that the General should enjoy himself. Flor- 
ence was reached on the 16th of April. The party were 
received at the station by the municipal authorities, the 
American Consul, Mr. J. Schuyler Crosby, deputations of 
the Italian army, and the American residents. Here they 
remained several days, visiting places of interest and 
greatly enjoying themselves. During their stay they 
visited the art galleries of the Uffizi and Pitti palaces, and 
also attended the religious ceremonies of Holy Saturday. 

21 357 



360 



GRANT'S TOUR 



They readied Venice on tlie 22d, and were received at 
the station by the officials of that city, Mr. John Harris, 
United States Consul, and several American residents. 

The unlimited power wielded by a hereditary aristoc- 
racy, as that of the Republic of Venice, whose importance 
and splendor were due solely to the fortunate results of 
commerce and industry, is a novel and astonishing fact of 
the Middle Age. It is difficult, indeed, to explain why, in 
spite of prejudice, this mercantile and industrial aristocracy 
was considered by the feudal nobles and warriors of Europe 
as the most desirable and illustrious of them all. 







1 



ST PETLRS, ROME SEATS 54,000 PEOPLE. 

The origin of this power, and of the eclat of the Repub- 
lic of Venice, does not extend much further back than the 
twelfth century. It was at about that period that the no- 
bility gained over the Venetian democracy the first and 
perhaps the most important of its victories. 

Padua, which had founded Venice, had at first ^\xt it 
under the authority of three consuls, who governed there 
about thirty years. About the year 453, when the fierce 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



361 



A.ttila, defeated by Meroveus, fell back and filled Italy with 
;error, numbers of the flying people flocked to the island of 
Rialto {il Rive Alto, the deep stream), which the Paduan 
senate had proclaimed a place of asylum, together with the 
idjacent islands of those lagoons which comprised the pos- 
;essions now constituting the city of Venice. Tribunes 
vere at first sent to govern them, who, however, erected 
;ach separate islet into a petty sovereignty, and thus reigned 




OLD ROMAN COLISEUM. 



mtil 697, when the people, disgusted with their little tyr- 
mnies, menaced their power, and the tribunes themselves 
confessed their governmental incapacity. Twelve of the 
Drincipal ones consulted together, and having obtained the 
consent of the Pope and the Emperor, decided to change 
;he form of the Executive, and confided it to one chief 
nagistrate, who should be elected for life and bear the title 
)f Doge, in the Venetian dialect meaning duke. Paolo 



362 



GRANT'S TOUR 



Luca Anafesto was chosen in March, 697, as the first Doge 
of Venice. 

Although Venice was in substantiality at this time an 
independent city, it still acknowledged the sovereignty of 
Padua. The Doges were not tardy in elevating themselves 
into real kings with absolute power. They associated their 
relations with them in power, and designated their succes- 
sors. But about the year 1172, a great change took place, 
being the victory of the nobility over the citizens, before 




ROMAN GLADIATORS. 



referred to. The nobility, Avhich formerly had participated 
in all the measures of the government in exactly the same 
degree as the lowest class of citizens, combined to abolish 
the mode of election of the reigning Doge, which had been 
that of universal suffrage. A Grand Council was estab- 
lished, and charged with the duty of choosing the Doge. 

This Council was composed of two hundred and forty 
citizens, taken indifferently from the nobility, the middle 
class, and the tradesmen. At the same time, in order to 
limit the ducal power, twelve tribunes were created, whose 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



363 



duty it was to control the acts of the chief magistrate, and 
to oppose them should it become necessary. 

This half-way measure, however, was not put into 
operation without creating great disorder. The nobility 
advanced rapidly towards their object. The people, driven 
back, reflected upon the rights which they had lost, mur- 
mured against the privileges which the nobility had arro- 
gated to themselves, and forced them, in the dread of a 
future reaction, to the renunciation of that which they had 
acquired, or the affirmance of it by a last stroke of au- 
thority. 




EOMAN GLADIATORS. 



The Grand Council resolved to put an end to this crisis. 
Paolo Gradenigho seemed to be the only one to whom they 
could confide the interests of Venice, and on him they con- 
ferred the Dogeship. Soon after, in 1297, it was proposed 
to concentrate all the power in the hands of those who at 
that time exercised the magistracy, or who should have 
made part of it during the four preceding years, in order 
that all the members of the Grand Council should be per- 
petuated in their dignities, and that their descendants 
should inherit the same rights. This proposition, being 



364: GRANT'S TOUR 

presented at the Council and sanctioned by the Prince, was 
adopted, and the government of Venice then became, in 
fact, an aristocratic one. The people found themselves 
finally excluded from the right to be employed in the 
public service, and from the right to be called upon to give 
their assent to any measure. All the functions and digni- 
ties were allotted to the patricians. 

The " Golden Book," which was created about this 
time, and in which was given the registry of all the nobil- 
ity, revealed an entirely new phase of character. In it was 
classified, categorically, this institution; it regulated the 
measure of consideration which was due to each of its mem- 
bers, implanted within them the spirit of caste in the high- 
est degree, and formed of this phalanx of patricians, who 
soon came to recruit themselves from the kings and princes 
of the Continent, the most comiDact and most ambitious of 
aristocracies. The " Golden Book " divided the Venetian 
nobility into four distinct orders. First, the families of the 
tribunes ; second, the nobles or descendants of the nobles 
who made part of the Grand Council of 1297 ; third, those 
who became ennobled during the wars against the Turks 
and Genoese ; and fourth, those Venetian nobles who had 
been accepted from among the foreign princes and lords. 
These four orders were subdivided into different classes. 

The first order, as has been said, was comjDOsed of " no- 
bill di case tribunicie," descendants of the tribunes who 
governed the lagoons before the institution of the Doges, 
and the twelve who concurred in the nomination of the 
first Doge, Anafesto, in March, 697. With this was a list 
of twelve houses, the " case vecchie eleitorali " (the old elec- 
toral houses) . These were, the Contarini, the Morosini, the 
Badoeri, the Michieli, the Sacrndi, the Gradenighi, the 
Falieri, the Dandoli, the Mencini, the Tiepoli, the Polani, 
and the Barozzi. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 365 

The Contarini family gave eight Doges of their name. 
Under Andre Contarini, in 1739, the existence of the re- 
public was menaced by the Genoese, commanded by Pierre 
Doria ; the treasury was empty, and food was scarce. King 
Louis of Hungary besieged Trevise, the army of Francis 
of Carrare surrounded the lagoons, the fleet of the Gulf 
was destroyed, the rest of the galleys were in the Levant, 
and the city of Chiozza, inclosed in the circuit of the la- 
goons, was at the mercy of the Genoese. The Doge Andre 
supplied the place of all ; the merchants armed thirty-four 
galleys, which he. commanded, and on June 24th, 1380, he 
returned to Venice in triumph, after having recovered Chi- 
ozza, and captured the Genoese fleet and army. 

There was also a Cardinal of this same name, Caspar 
Contarini, who was sent as a legate to the Diet of Katisbon, 
destined by the Emperor Charles V. for the reconciliation 
of the Protestants and Catholics. Cardinal Contarini had 
a high mission. His conduct was able, but a trifle ambig- 
uous. He wrote many remarkable works, which reflected 
the philosophy of the age. 

The Morosini family gave four Doges to Venice, and 
one King to Hungary. It also included a historian, Andre 
Morosini, who was born in 1558, and wrote the History of 
Venice from 1521 to 1615. One of the greatest command- 
ers of the seventeenth century was also of this name, 
Francis Morosini. Among his great deeds, the most re- 
markable was the defense of Candia against the Turks, 
from 1667 to 1669. The Grand Vizier Kuproli directed 
the attack. This siege has been compared to that of Troy. 
Morosini prevented the capture of Candia for twenty-eight 
months. The highest gentlemen of France and Italy took 
part in the siege, and at last an honorable capitulation was 
made. The Turks lost 200,000 men. 

The Badoeri family were descended from the Partici- 



368 GRANT'S TOUR 

paccio. Angelo Participaccio organized tlie resistance of 
the Venetians to Pepin, King of the Lombards, son of 
Charlemagne. Tlie ships of this prince had taken pos- 
session of many of the islands. Angelo drove them, by 
means of light shallops, to that part where, when the tide 
fell, they became stranded. Chosen Doge in 806, Angelo 
established the centre of government at Pialto, and ruled 
for eighteen years in peace. Under his rule, the body of 
St. Mark was taken from the church of Alexandria. An- 
gelo might, perhaps, be considered one of the founders of 
Venice, and his family remained for a long time the most 
powerful of this city. 

The Michieli family gave three Doges. Domenico 
Michieli, in 1124, took so great a part in the conquest of 
Tyre that Baldwin II. accorded to the Venetians the third 
of the sovereignty of that city. 

The Sacrndi or Candieni are of a family so ancient that 
they take their origin from one of the seven consuls sent 
by Padua to build Venice. It was on this family that 
Henry, Emperor of Constantinople, in the commencement 
of the thirteenth century, conferred the Duchy of the Ar- 
chipelago. 

The Gradenighi have had four Doges, among them 
those who worked the revolution of 1297. They showed 
great vigor and ability, but they remained an object of 
hatred to the people. 

Among the Falieri we find Marino Faliero, who was be- 
headed in 1355 for conspiring against the nobility. He 
was seventy-seven years old. The plebeians, who desired 
to avenge their defeat of 1297, were united with him and 
intended to kill all the patricians. This celebrated Doge 
was born in 1275. He became Doge on January 5th, 1355, 
and almost immediately a contest broke out in his palace 
which proved fatal to him. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 369 

A young nobleman of Venice, Micheli Steno, enamored 
of one of the Dogessa's maids of honor, on occasion of one 
of the balls given during the carnival, took liberties with 
her which, although excusable under the excitement of 
the season, gave umbrage to the Doge, who ordered Steno 
to leave the palace. The young man, exasperated at this 
treatment, avenged it by writing on the chair of the Doge 
the following words, ^'Marino Faliero dalla bella moglie, 
altri la gode ed egli la mantienner 

The Doge's wrath knew no bounds, and as the Senate 
and Council refused to treat the affair as a question of state, 
and the criminal court sentenced Steno to only a brief im- 
prisonment and a year's exile, Faliero determined to wreak 
vengeance by exterminating the whole body of the nobility, 
who were held by the populace as tyrants. 

The day fixed for the consummation of his design was 
April 15, 1355, but the conspiracy was discovered on the 
day previous; the Doge was arrested, and, after a full con- 
fession of his guilt, he was sentenced to death and be- 
headed on the 17th, having reigned but three months and 
twelve days. 

In the council-hall of the palace, where the portraits 
of the Doges of Venice are joreserved, a black drapery 
covers the spot intended for that of Faliero, bearing this 
inscription, '^Spazio di Ifarino Faliero de Decapitato." 

The Dandoli family recount their descent from one of 
the families of ancient Rome. This family gave four Doges 
and one Dogessa. Henry Dandolo rendered his name 
celebrated by a powerful co-operation in the Crusades, 
during which the Greek Empire at Constantinople was 
destroyed. This veteran was eighty-five years old, and, 
independently of his military courage, he was gifted with 
a boldness of idea still greater than the boldness of action 
of the princes and lords of the Cross. It is said that he 



370 GRANT'S TOUR 

refused the crown given to Baldwin, Count of Flanders ; 
but he extended the dominion of Venice over a large part 
of the Archipelago, and many ports on the shores of 
Greece. 

In addition to the twelve Electoral Houses, called some- 
times the "Twelve Apostles," there were four families who 
were designated as the four Evangelists — the Giustiniani, 
the Bragadini, the Bembi, and the Cornari. A Bembo, 
cardinal, was one of the distinguished Italian authors who 
shone so brilliantly in the sixteenth century. Catharine, 
the last queen of Cyprus, belonged to the family of Cor- 
naro. She had married Lusignan, king of that island, 
who died in 1475. The Venetians honored her with the 
title, "The Daughter of St. Mark," and consequently Avere 
declared her future heirs. Under the title of " heirs and 
protectors," they so much annoyed the unfortunate woman 
that she determined to abdicate the crown in their favor in 
1489. She passed her last days at Venice, joreserving her] 
title of Queen and a little court. 

Leaving Venice, the party proceeded to Milan, where 
they arrived on the 27th. They were cordially welcomed 
by the Prefect, Syndic, and American residents of the city. 
The city is described by one of its visitors as follows : — 
The Italian Paris certainly manages to deny its identity 
and hide its antiquity very successfully, and scarcely can 
the boulevards, except by their size, outdo the Corso Vit- 
torio Emanuele, with its continuations leading to the pub- 
lic gardens ; while the Arc de I'Etoile is at least equalled 
by the Porta Sempione, or "Arch of Peace," begun by 
Napoleon as a termination to the Simplon route, and fin- 
ished by the Austrians thirty years later. 

The Corso is brilliant, crowded, busy, fashionable, be- 
wildering ; the shops, with conspicuous glass cases rather 
than windows, are dazzling in their show, variety, and high 



AROUND THE WORLD. 371 

prices ; Parisian toilets fill tlie English carriages, and 
Poole's costumes surmount the English horses, which 
crowd the middle of the street ; flowers are sold at every 
corner, and cafes^ where the ices are famous, are besieged 
about four o'clock by the most fastidiously elegant turn- 
outs that ever formed a barricade against dull care. 

Anglomania is the badge of good society among the 
younger Milanese nobility ; and to see the representatives 
of the old times, you must dive into the back streets, where 
huge partes cocheres still admit you into solemn quadran- 
gles, the homes of the old-fashioned, devout, severely 
dressed, and not too well-educated grandees. 

A pleasanter view of some of the more unpretentious, 
but travelled people, is to be had by a country-visit, such 
as I remember. The villa was near Monza, a place made 
famous by the tragical history of Manzoni, " Nun of 

Monza," and was the property of Duke S , a pleasant 

old nobleman whom I had known in Pome. The house 
was plain, square, and painted a light, neutral color ; 
French windows led from the ground-floor rooms to a wide 
j)iazza OA^erlooking English lawns and " grounds ; " the 
floors are parquet or scagliola, and coolness and darkness 
reigned throughout the house, which was quite modern, 
and only intended for summer. 

Milan itself is not 023pressively hot in summer, and 
being so very anxious to announce itself as perfectly on 
the level of the times, and by no means a mere museum, 
such as the more picturesque and laggard cities of Italy, 
does not lay a burden on the tourist in the way of sight- 
seeing. After you have climbed the tower of the Cathedral, 
and admired the two thousand statues, representing the 
army of heaven, and the magnificent rampart of the Alps 
on the clear horizon ; when you have examined the dried 
body of St. Charles in the subterranean chapel, where a 



372 GRANT'S TOUR 

guide carries a torcli to enable you to see tlie silver panel- 
ling of the walls and ceiling ; and when you have wondered 
at the life-size silver statues of St. Charles and St. Am- 
brose, and the wealth of jewelry in the treasury or vestry 
of the church, you feel as if you might indulge in a saun- 
ter in the modern gardens, take a siesta at your comfort- 
able hotel, or follow the lazy string of carriage-idlers round 
the chestnut-shaded drive that skirts the old ramparts. 

Not but what a seeker after antiquities and curiosities 
can find more than enough to " run him off his feet " for a 
week at least, but it does not stare him in the face, or chal- 
lenge him to " do " it, as elsewhere. You fall into the lazy 
bustle of the place ; you think of the politics of the day 
instead of the history of the past ; you are excited at the 
new opera prospects at La Scala, almost the largest theatre 
in the world, and where " I'Africaine " can be, as I saw it, 
better put on the stage than anywhere, except at the new 
Opera House in Paris. Though as to talent, Milan can no 
longer command a purse long enough to insure anything 
first-rate. You sit for hours eating ices and drinking sher- 
bet by moonlight in the gardens, while the band plays the 
last pot-pourri out of the last opera-bouffe ; or you stroll 
over to the new Zoological Department, and only then 
realize that the display denotes a provincial town instead 
of a capital. 

But Milan has the modern spirit more fully develo23ed 
than any of the successive capitals of her own land ; and 
has an independent life of her own outside either the 
political or the foreign element, for she is the wealthiest 
manufacturing town in the kingdom, carrying on a brisk 
trade in silk and wool. Again, she is a perfect Paris in the 
line of art, having evolved a new school of painting, very 
French in its aspiration, and one of sculpture, rather wildly 
realistic, but nevertheless evidencing much crude talent in 



I 



AROUND THE WORLD. 373 

its members, as well as considerable teclinical, imitative 
skill (the Cathedral roof and the new cemetery have been 
convenient places of exhibition for active sculptors of in- 
novating tendencies) ; while in music, the Conservatoire of 
]\Iilan is confessedly the headquarters of the art in Italy. 
Foreigners, especially singers, go there to study for oper- 
atic i^er forming, and Italians go to learn music, though 
they learn but a local style, and that not the highest ; but 
it is pojDular in their own country, and not unpopular in 
most others, except Germany and Belgium. 

The Cathedral is still the public, commercial, social, 
and religious nucleus of Milan, though the Piazza is very 
different now from the former surroundings of the Church, 
where the merchants of old gathered, and the nobles mar- 
shalled themselves, and the peojDle fought for bread during 
the famines that succeeded the plague in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, as is told in Manzour's novel of " The Betrothed." 

Despite the first impression — -some one has called 
this white-marble Cathedral a church of lace-work — the 
Church strikes the eye as defective after a few moments' 
observation, and I never could admire it so unreservedly 
as most travellers think themselves bound to do. It lacks 
height, as even its highest jDinnacle is not worthy to be 
called a spire ; and its heavy, square-topped, Benaissance 
portals, and indeed the whole faQade, are distressingly out 
of keejDing with the rest of the florid Gothic design. The 
ceiling is also another blemish and disappointment, being 
painted in imitation of stone-work, and the sham is very 
transparent. 

Setting aside these details, there is much that is inter- 
esting, both in the way of monuments and pictures ; but 
two of the most curious specialties, neither of which is men- 
tioned in the latest guide-books, are the seven-branched, 
gilt-bronzed candelabrum, standing in the right transept. 



374 GRANT'S TOUR 

on a sculptured pedestal of Sienna marble, with the Virgin 
and Child carved on the shaft, and the branches adorned 
with foliage and miniature statues ; and the colossal statue 
of St. Bartholomew in the rear of the choir and high altar, 
representing the apostle as flayed alive. The sculptor, 
Marco Agrato, was so proud of his work, that he recorded 
his satisfaction in Latin inscription to this effect: "Not 
Praxiteles, but Marcus Agratus, designed and executed 
me." 

Immediately in front of the choir-railings is a round 
opening, with lamps perpetually burning, an artistic rail- 
ing encircling it ; and through this we catch a glimpse of 
the subterranean shrine of St. Charles Borromeo, Arch- 
bishop of Milan in 1557. The plague broke out in the 
city during his lifetime, and he exposed himself personally 
in the most fearless way, encouraging the clergy to do 
their duty likewise. His nephew. Cardinal Frederick 
Borromeo, was his successor in the See, and inherited the 
same virtues. Manzoni gives an admirable portrait of him 
,in "The Betrothed," as a contrast to the wretched Don 
Abbondio, the country parish priest ; both portraits being 
historical. 

The body of St. Charles lies in a glass case — the face 
uncovered, the flesh dried and brown like a mummy's ; the 
hands encased in episcopal embroidered gloves, and the 
body clothed in episcopal robes. The mitre and pillow 
under the head are one mass of gold and jewels, while 
scenes of the saint's life are chiselled on the silver lining 
of the walls, blackened by the torches constantly applied 
to them for the benefit of curious strangers. 

Milan and its diocese still cling to certain old customs 
and privileges, some dating from the fourth century ; others 
sheltering themselves under the same plea, for instance, 
the twelve days' prolongation of the carnival after Lent 



AROUND THE WORLD. 375 

begins — an indulgence actually ascribed, by ]3opular belief, 
to St. Ambrose himself. The Ambrosian Rite is of un- 
doubted antiquity, and is still in use in all the churches 
of the diocese. The ceremonies of the mass differ slightly 
from those in Rome, and wherever the Roman Rite pre- 
vails ; and there is something Oriental in a few of the turn- 
ings, gestures, lifting of hands, and blessings, which occur 
during the mass. Also at the Cathedral, on certain days, 
an ancient custom is kept up by certain families, in which 
it is an hereditary privilege, of offering bread and wine in 
public, at what is called the " Offertory " of the mass, that 
is, immediately after the Creed is sung. 

Outside these peculiarities, the same religious customs 
as elsewhere in Italy prevail in Milan. I remember visit- 
ing one of the ordinary churches on an evening devoted 
to a special service and sermon, where crowds stood and 
knelt — chairs are seldom used in Italy except at early 
morning services, when the church is not full, or during 
Lent and Advent sermons ; and at other times are piled 
up out of sight in some recess, chapel, or lobby adjacent 
— and the altar alone, brilliantly and profusely lighted, 
blazed out against the dark background. Red and white 
drapery hung in alternate and interlacing festoons from 
the arches, and gold-braid was fancifully looped and trel- 
lised across the drapery. The joeople sang right willingly, 
but not very musically. Such scenes are common. 

At another time I witnessed a curious religious cere- 
mony, if not quite of a local nature, yet unusual — a ser- 
mon and some devotions in the vulgar tongue, commem- 
orating the sorrow of the Mother of Christ, on the night 
of Good Friday, after the Crucifixion. If I remember 
right, there was some representative image in the church, 
prominently placed so as to remind the congregation of the 
object of the meeting, which took place at dusk. This 



376 GRANT'S TOUR 

was not common to all tlie cliurclies of tlie city, but was 
done here and there only. 

At Venice, on Holy Saturday night, or Easter Eve, 
there is a custom peculiar to St. Mark's, of lighting an 
immense Greek cross which hangs in the nave, and which 
remains thus lighted, the rest of the church in deep dark- 
ness, until dawn on Easter Sunday, and is intended to 
commemorate the night of the Kesurrection. The same 
custom used to prevail in one small church in Home, on 
the same side of the Tiber as St. Peter's, in a little piazza 
half-way between the Vatican and the Bridge of St. An- 
gelo. 

Next to the Cathedral, the greatest boast of Milan is 
the Ambrosian Library, the work of Frederick Borromeo, 
and now consisting of 150,000 printed books, besides 
20,000 very ancient and valuable manuscripts. There are 
pictures and statues, bronzes and gems, and miscellaneous 
curiosities as well. I do not remember anything distinctly 
of my hurried visit, except a lock of fair hair and a sig- 
nature, both said to be authentic memorials of the much- 
maligned Lucrezia Borgia. 

It often seems a pity, when we look back on visits to 
places that should have detained one for weeks, to remem- 
ber that the visit was made at an age or a time when one 
had not read or studied enough to care for historically, and 
appreciate at their right value, these points of contact with 
the history of the past. Properly speaking, no one should 
travel through historical lands, and visit celebrated places, 
until he has prepared himself to understand as well as 
enjoy what he sees. Unluckily, I travelled at a time when 
only striking exceptions made much impression on a mind 
just let loose from school-tasks. Even at that time, how- 
ever, the Church of St. Ambrose, the former cathedral of 
the city, and the scene of the great Bishop's defiance of 



AROUND THE WORLD. 377 

riieodosius, tlie emperor wlio liad ordered the massacre of 
ill the inhabitants of Thessalonica, in revenge for a slight 
offered to one of his officers, had a peculiar interest for me. 
Y^ou go in through an atrium, or quadrangle, surrounded 
by round arches with old tombstones and inscriptions, and 
lalf-effaced frescoes of the twelfth century (the court itself 
s said to be of the ninth), but if tradition is right it must 
3e far older, for the massive church gates are believed to 
36 the same which St. Ambrose closed on the excommuni- 
cated emperor, forbidding him to defile the house of God 
3y his presence. The sovereign accepted the rebuke, and 
iid canonical penance for his sin, besides giving large 
Drivileges and indemnities to the outraged city which he 
lad so wantonly decimated. 

This old church was formerly dedicated to the martyrs 
jrervasius and Protasius, but after St. Ambrose's death, it 
vas re-dedicated to him, and the spot where were the tombs 
)f the former became forgotten. When I visited it, they 
lad just been discovered, and alterations were going 
)n in the modernized crypt, where St. Ambrose is also 
3uried. 

The coronation of the Lombard Kings, and subsequently 
)f the German Emperors, with the Iron Crown, used to be 
Derformed in this ancient cathedral, which, like St. Mark's, 
it Venice, is not content with its own wealth of traditions, 
)ut actually claims to possess a Mosaic relic, in the shape 
)f a brazen serpent on a short column in the nave. I do 
lot know the date of this, but it probably came from Con- 
itantinople at the same time as the many Byzantine treas- 
ires and relics at Venice. 

The Iron Crown is still preserved at Monza, in the 
Teasury of the Cathedral, and was used as late as 1838, 
?7hen the last of the titular sovereigns of the Holy Roman 
Empire, Ferdinand I. of Austria, was crowned. It con- 



378 GRANT'S TOUR 

sists of a broad band, or boop, of gold, studded witb jewels, 
and inclosing a tbin strip of iron, said to bave been made 
from a nail (one of tbe supposed relics of tbe Passion of 
Cbrist), brougbt by tbe Empress Helena from Palestine. 
Tbe Austrians carried off tbis national treasure in tbe war 
of 1859, but restored it after tbe peace of 1866. 

Tbe peculiar galleries of Romanesque form wbicb dis- 
tinguisb St. Ambrose, and tbe carved marble and porpbyry 
canopy or haldacchino over tbe bigb altar, wbicb witnesses 
to tbe extreme antiquity of tbe cburcb, strike one less tban 
tbe extraordinary display of early goldsmitbs' work wbicb 
adorns tbe bigb altar itself. Tbe latter is a square-bottom 
table, between tbree and four feet bigb, eacb side of wbicb 
is covered witb gold and silver, some of wbicb is engraved 
in relievo, but mostly encrusted witb uncut gems, and en- 
ricbed witb enamel ; tbe work of a German artist contem- 
porary witb Cbarlemagne (nintb century). 

Tbis " golden portal " reminded me of tbe equally mar- 
vellous " golden screen," or reredos, of St. Mark's at Ven- 
ice, a wall of jewelry standing bebind tbe altar ; but, like 
tbe " portal," only exposed on bigb days and bolidays, un- 
less wben privately uncovered for tbe benefit of sigbt- 
seers. 

Like most of tbe cburcbes of tbe ante-mediseval time, 
St. Ambrose's is distinguisbed by a bisbop's tbrone bebind 
tbe altar, in tbe furtber end of tbe apse. 

Tbe most j)erfect specimen I ever saw of tbe earliest 
Italian arrangement of seats for tbe clergy in a catbedral, 
is at tbe obscure, deserted little island-town of Torcello, six 
miles from Venice, wbere tbe seventb century catbedral is 
a plain, rectangular basilica, supported by columns, and 
baving tbe east end, or apse, filled by semicircular seats, 
rising in six tiers, and commanded by a lofty episcopal 
tbrone of rudely-carved stone in tbe centre. Tbe present 



AROUND THE WORLD. 379 

Roman Catliolic custom is for the bishop's throne to be on 
the right-hand side of the altar, 

One of the religious pictures most popular and well- 
known throughout the world has its defaced and damaged 
original in the ancient refectory or dining-hall of the (sup- 
pressed) monastery connected with the abbey-church of 
Santa Maria delle Grazie. This is Leonardo da Vinci's 
"Last Supper." It is almost unrecognizable, but some 
authentic copies and engravings exist, which prove that the 
popular representatives of the picture are very far from 
being faithful copies. The head of the Saviour, especially, 
has less of the usual defect of genuineness than its equiva- 
lent in most pictures of Christ, and far less of the conven- 
tionality given to it by repeated filtrations of this particu- 
lar original, through careless engravings and photographs. 

On driving through the rather bare Piazza d/Armi, or 
drilling-ground, the changed condition of the city of the 
Yisconti, and then of the Sforza, is strikingly noticed, for 
the castle of the "tyrants" is now a barrack, and not far 
is an arena, or circus, for races, built by Napoleon ; while 
opposite, the chief feature in the dreary surroundings, 
stands the Arch of Peace, with its goddess careering in a 
chariot with six horses, attended by four " victories " on 
horseback. River-gods and allegorical and historical bass- 
reliefs and inscriptions cover the rest of the space, which is 
intended to remind one of the Triumphal Arches in the 
Roman Forum, but usually carries the mind rather to 
Paris and the Champs Elysees. I confess I could not see 
the beauty of this gate, standing by itself in a miniature 
wilderness ; it has some of the cold beauty of the Munich 
buildings, but equally with them leaves the spectator un- 
impressed and rather cheerless. 

Does any one think Milan has, so far, vindicated its 
claim to being in the van of modern civilization ? A sec- 



380 GRANT'S TOUR. 

tion of tlie inliabitants, at any rate, was determined to prove 
its " progression " by far more practical tests, one of wliich 
exists in the Temple of Cremation, erected for the proper 
burning of tlie dead, in the large new cemetery, one of the 
finest in Italy, whose monuments form absolutely a museum 
of modern Milanese sculpture, and whose space of 500 
acres is inclosed by beautiful, classic colonnades. 

The environs of Milan ought to be the subject of a sep- 
arate sketch, so peculiar are their characteristics, so un- 
Italian, with their half-submerged rice-fields, and excellent 
roads on elevated causeways, often bordered with luxuriant 
hedges worthy of England, and hiding under their bushi- 
ness masses of brilliant wild-flowers. Well-cultivated 
farms, and well-kept farm-buildings, distinguish Lom- 
bardy from almost every other Italian agricultural region. 
As to scenery, there is not much, except in the distant 
view of the Alps — especially beautiful at sunrise and 
sunset. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

GENOVA LA SUPEEBA ITS STAISDING COMPAEED WITH 

OTHER CITIES GENOA, PAST AND PRESENT THE 

ARMOR-MAKER OF DORIA THE " GOLD-WORKERS " 

THE STRADA DEGLI OREFICI THE DUOMO THE 

CHURCH OF ST. MATTHEW THE MONUMENT OF CO- 
LUMBUS THE GARDENS OF ACQUA SOLA THE VILLA 

DORIA VILLA PALLAVICINI ROSAZZA THEATRE 

OF CARLO FELICE AN INCIDENT THE PORTO 

FRANCO. 

General Grant and liis party also visited Genoa, where 
they were received by the nobility of the city in a most 
cordial manner. A correspondent writes from this point 
as follows : — The surname which distinguished Venice's 
princely rival in the struggle for supremacy in the Middle 
Ages did not signify so much the "magnificent" as. the 
" proud." Genova la Superba stood for independence and 
lofty self-confidence ; it was the synonym of all that was 
haughty in politics, aristocratic in association, domineering 
in commerce. 

Genoa was more thoroughly Italian than Venice ; her 
position was more central ; her policy, so to speak, more 
national. Venice stood in a more exceptional position, 
and was as much a world's wonder as a working practical 
power among the family of nations. But both these cities, 
fallen as they now are from their independent sovereignty, 
have kept, more than any others, the outward form with 
which imagination not very inaccurately clothes their busy 
life of earlier days. Both of them abodes of luxury and 
homes of elegant and advanced civilization, they have kept 

S81 



382 GRANT'S TOUR 

almost intact the outer shell of their old courtly life. 
Rome, torn by the internal broils of robber barons and 
occasional popular revolutions, had but a rude aspect, and 
contained within her bosom more fortresses than museums. 
When the Popes returned from Avignon, and enlight- 
ened men, artists, and literati began to gather round the 
throne of the Medici, the Roveri, the grand Sixtus. V., and 
others of like renown, Rome took on the garment of a 
civilization which naturally borrowed much from the old 
classic times, the peculiar pride of her people. As cen- 
turies rolled on, the ecclesiastical nature of the government, 
blending with the artistic associations of classicism, pro- 
duced a type unique in Italy, or, indeed, in Europe. Flor- 
ence, a thoroughly stirring, progressive commonwealth, 
became, from a sovereign city, the capital of an important 
principality, and went gracefully and naturally with the 
current of innovation, till it became a kind of intellectual 
" sanctuary " — the neutral abode of exiles of all lands ; 
the placid harborer of every new idea, however impracti- 
cable; and the nucleus of a large foreign population. 
Naples, the least historical, because the least independent, 
of Italian States in the Middle Ages, drifted from one 
foreign ruler to the other, always a prize for the victor, but 
never herself a serious party to the transfer. Pleasure- 
loving and frivolous, like decrepid Imperial Rome in the 
days when the unthinking mob cried ^^Panem et circenses ! " 
and willingly let even the semblance of autonomy drop 
from their hands, Naples was as wax in the grasp of her 
rulers, and never had that vigorous national life which 
alone can and does give a characteristic aspect to the out- 
ward form and buildings of a city. Milan, the Paris of 
Italy, has followed, especially of late, in the footsteps of 
her prototype, and gradually swept away all architectural 
signs of individualism. The city of St. Charles and St, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 383 

Ambrose Is now, save for a few of its cliurclies and relig- 
ious establishments, little more than a modern town clus- 
tered round a fairy-like cathedral. Turin, the most dismal 
and precise of the principal towns of Italy, was burnt 
down within the last seventy or eighty years, and rebuilt 
on the rectangular plan, which, in an old, historical land, 
is so distressingly monotonous, and so typical of a buried 
individuality. The Royal Palace is like an exaggerated 
barrack, and the principal streets remind one of the paths 
of an immense cemetery, lined with gigantic mausoleums. 
Something of this dreary impression is made on the trav- 
eller's mind by the first view of Munich ; but then, here 
the cold exterior is compensated by the quick throbbing 
of the artist-life which is the very heart's-blood of the 
German city. 

Of all the capitals of old Italy, none have remained so 
outwardly unchanged as the two rival Republics, the marts 
of a world-wide commerce. Both kept their shadowy 
power until absorbed by Napoleon, and, though their 
supremacy had long been but nominal, still the charm lin- 
gered around the stately piles where dwelt the descendants 
of their merchant-princes and their former lordly patrons 
of art and letters. Both became only secondary seats of 
power, after their independence was taken from them. 
Milan was made the Austrian capital of Lombardo-Venetia, 
while Venice remained subordinate, and Genoa had to look 
to Turin as her mistress. Artistically speaking, this was 
no loss ; for if, as a rule, capitals draw to themselves all 
the talent of a nation, yet their influence is often such as 
to desecrate the talent they reward — to vulgarize it by 
homage indiscriminately, and often carelessly, given, as a 
mere matter of course, and to lower art in the eyes of its 
own votaries by making success the only test of its worth. 
The official and political life of a capital corrupts the atmos- 



384 GRANT'S TOUR 

pliere and thickens tlie air,' so that the calm needed for the 
true growth of art is not to be found therein ; or else art 
itself is taken up, made a pet of, tied to the car of political 
and social triumph as an embellishment, a set-off, a favorite 
slave, sumptuously arrayed, yet carefully debarred from any 
independent aspirations. Art cannot breathe in this arti- 
ficial condition ; it may consent to be the friend and com- 
panion of princes, but never stoops to become their crea- 
tion and their puppet. The moment its children accept 
this subordinate attitude they cease to be true worship23ers 
of the beautiful, and become apostates from the traditions 
of their brotherhood. The expedient takes with them the 
place of the beautiful, and they are no longer shepherds, 
but hirelings. 

It is, perhaps, a matter of discussion whether the two 
queen cities of northern Italy were better off as tributary 
than as capital towns ; but it is nevertheless indisputable 
that their exclusion from the busy political life of dis- 
turbed Italy has given them an aspect of peace which 
they otherwise could not have worn, and which is pecu- 
liarly favorable to the illusions of the stranger and the 
traveller. 

We can reconstruct for ourselves the picture of the past 
of the sovereign Republics, as we pace the narrow streets 
and look in at the solemn portals of their silent palaces ; 
but how difficult it would be to bring back that past if we 
had to pierce the disguise of common, bustling, bureau- 
cratic life in the nineteenth century ! As it is, there is 
scarcely anything to shock one's sense of the fitness of 
things, on entering " Genoa the Superb." The sj)lendid 
harbor is still full of shipping, the amphitheatre of hills 
that cradles the city is proudly crowned, partly by ramparts 
and bastions, partly by the natural defenses of rock and 
forest. The beauty of a summer sunrise glorifies the city 



AROUND THE WORLD. 385 

a liundred-fold,. as seen from the deck of a vessel at sea. 
Every hour of the day lends some new and regal beauty to 
the Queen of the Mediterranean ; but night also has its 
peculiar effect, and sheds a more mysterious charm over 
the great, silent, densely crowded harbor and the deserted 
wharves and streets. 

It was at night and by sea that we reached Genoa, and 
the romance of our stay began in the very first hour of our 
landing. A boat came to take us off the ship, and, the 
usual Italian bustle being hushed, the descent down the 
steejD sides of the vessel, and the crowding into an open 
boat with a large awning, was accomplished almost in 
silence. We were tired with the long journey, and among 
us was one whose health could stand but little in the way 
of fatigue ; so there was nothing said on the way to the 
mole, or pier — none of the usual tourists' gossip and won- 
dering, and eager, restless planning. 

Noiselessly the boat threaded its way among the great, 
black hulls of the numerous merchant- vessels. Here and 
there gleamed the ray of a colored lantern ; now and then 
a deep voice would shout a warning. Over our heads were 
the crossed bowsprits of many shijDS, lying close together, 
and once or twice we caught sight of a figure-head — a 
gorgeous mermaid with golden hair, or a flying Cupid hold- 
ing a toy anchor. 

We had not seen Venice then, but the thought of that 
beautiful sea-city came uppermost in our minds, as we 
glided through that throng of ships, and tried to picture 
to ourselves where the Bucentaur might be lying, getting 
ready for the coming bridal with the Adriatic. Long after- 
wards, when Venice became a present reality, the impres- 
sion it left was far different to that of the busy port of 
Genoa, even in its temporary hush. Venice has no fleet 
of merchantmen whitening her lagoons with their sails; 



386 GRANT'S TOUR 

still more tlian Genoa, slie is a relic of tlie past, a museum- 
city, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. 

When we reached the dock, no noisy porters made their 
appearance, no officious custom-house men attacked us; 
and crossing a lonely salle, patrolled by a single military 
sentry, we walked a few paces further to the hotel. Dark, 
tall arcades shrouded the sea-view, and recrossed a street- 
railway running down the centre of the quay. On the 
other side was the large, silent palace, now turned into a 
modern hotel. The change is little apparent — one might 
dream one's self the guest of the Republic on entering this 
vast house, full of marble stairs, floors of coarse mosaic, 
frescoed walls, and carved and gilded ceilings. Save the 
marbles, the palace is as it was three — four — five hundred 
years ago. In one room, long, costly Chinese tapestries, 
embroidered in colored silks, on a thick, creamy, satin 
ground. Even the furniture here is antique, though it 
may not have been the heirlooms of the particular family 
to whom this palace once belonged. Even sales at auction 
here would furnish little that was not antique. 

When things curious or valuable lose the value put 
upon them by fashion, they pass from the palace to the 
cottage, the dingy stall, or, perhaps, the public institutions; 
thence they may find their way to the pawnbroker's, and 
then back to the palace, as specimens of " our forefathers' 
strange taste." 

Nowadays, they may be found in museums, or in 
hotels, or, again in curiosity shops, where half the " cu- 
riosities" are modern, though faithfully and skilfully 
copied from the genuine old relics. What podestas gave 
as marriage gifts to their daughters, what merchants 
brought to their brides from the sack of Byzantine cities 
or the plunder of Infidel ships, may be found in the frag- 
ments now offered for sale to the English, Russian, and 



AROUND THE WORLD. 387 

American connoisseurs, as collections of artistic hric-h- 
brac. 

The ornaments of the olden time were so solid that they 
do not disappear like our own flimsier luxuries, or else the 
artistic spirit is stronger in all classes of this Italian land, 
and they respect a thing more for its intrinsic, even if 
faded, beauty, than for its present usefulness. 

Right opposite the palace-hotel of the " Four Nations " 
runs the elevated promenade, which is one of the modern 
features of Genoa. One is apt to think of the fabled hang- 
ing-gardens of Babylon while climbing the endless stone 
steps leading to this promenade in mid-air. A solid wall 
of masonry, fifty feet high, divided the street from the 
wharves, and, affording a surface of at least twelve feet 
broad at the top, is a strange sight. Here and there the 
wall is pierced by arcades leading to the sea. From the 
top a magnificent view extends over the harbor and the 
blue sea beyond. 

All along the broad flagged faQade, protected by stone 
copings and ornamental railings, may be seen the many 
types of the Genoese population — women in the white 
muslin veil which is the national head-dress here, as the 
mantilla is in Spain ; men in sailors' costumes ; bersaglieri, 
j with their glazed round hats, surmounted by an enormous 
bunch of dark green cocks' feathers ; the officials of the 
Government in unpicturesque uniforms ; ladies in Parisian 
toilets ; men in coats of an unmistakably English cut ; 
[|i children selling flowers or begging soldi ; many little, bare- 
footed urchins ; strong, brawny, dark-skinned men from 
the country ; artificers from the narrow, dingy workshops 
of the town — a motley throng, such as is usually met with 
in the seaports of the South. 

Look over the parapet on one side and you will see the 
harbor — no longer voiceless like last night, but alive with 



388' GRANT'S TOUR 

parrot-like screecliing ; tlie sea beyond tlie fort, so blue and 
glassy ; and, perliaps, the distant column of smoke, tliat 
betokens the expected steamship from Marseilles. Look 
over the opposite side, and there, like a stream of ants, 
runs the busying crowd in the street by the railway ; the 
low arcades at the end of the street are filled by humble 
customers jostling each other, and chaffering for cheap 
finery, gaudy handkerchiefs or tinsel jewelry; and the 
open hired carriages are taking the forestieri quickly 
through the old city to see the sights that have now so 
woefully dwindled in number. 

Parallel with this street, through which the railway 
runs (between stout iron railings), is the Strada Nuova and 
the Strada Balbi — one roadway under two different names; 
the new part of the street having been new upwards of two 
hundred years ago. These, the j)rincipal arteries of the 
city, are lined on both sides with palaces. The two Balbi 
palaces stand oj^posite each other, and are called, resj)ec- 
tively, the " Red " and the " White," from the different 
marbles of which they are built. Both are full of pictures 
and objects of vertu; every hall a museum; the doors set 
in carved marble doorways ; the floors of Florentine mo- 
saic ; the very hangings on the walls gorgeous with East- 
ern colors and classic figures cunningly embroidered. 

Genoa herself was famous during the Middle Ages for 
her velvets and tapestries ; now the looms are gone, and 
the tyrant Fashion has transferred this branch of Genoa's 
old commerce to other and newer centres. 

The Boyal Palace has a famous gallery of paintings, but 
as we only had Sunday to spare for it, and it hapj^ened to 
be closed on that day, we never saw it. What was visible 
and accessible to every one at any time, however, was a 
lovely view of the garden and court-yard of the palace. 
These gardens are the distinguishing traits of the Genoese 



AROUND THE WORLD. 389 

houses, and give the old piles quite a different as23ect from 
those of Borne or Venice. 

Very often you find yourself arrested by a long flight 
of broad steps, so that, instead of driving in through a 
great door into a side quadrangle, as in Home, you have to 
alight at the house-door itself. As in Venice, a marble- 
floored hall, open at the opposite end, runs right back the 
breadth of the house, and leads into a court-yard of small 
dimensions, on the other side of which stands an iron rail- 
ing. Behind that, orange and lemon trees, oleander and 
myrtle and ilex grow negiectedly round an untrimmed 
grass-plot with a classic fountain in the centre. 

In Bome the gardens, if small, lie out of sight of the 
casual visitor, and, if large, surround the house very osten- 
sibly, and are separated from the street by a high blank 
wall. In Venice, they are very often absent altogether, as 
a canal washes the steps on either side of the house, and so 
few houses have even a twelve-feet-square inclosure for 
trees and flowers, that the sight is more an exception than 
a feature. 

In Genoa, however, no palace is without its garden, so 
temptingly revealed and so picturesquely situated that the 
visitor is very likely to forget the pictures which he came 
to see, and content himself with gazing at the oasis behind 
the railings. Genoa is a city of constant living pictures, 
so much has the old mediaeval sachet remained stamped on 
its daily, common life. There is one peculiarity observable 
in many of the princely buildings, now deserted or empty, 
or tenanted only by a fraction of a once powerful family — 
they are built of alternate rows of blocks of white and black 
iaarble. So is the Duomo, or Cathedral, a Bomanesque 
church, heavy and gorgeous in its ornaments as well as its 
architecture, and a fit emblem of the earnest phase of reli- 
gion that preceded the gaudy age of the Benaissance. All 



390 GRANT'S TOUR 

the streets, except three or four principal ones, are mere 
narrow lanes, where two wheelbarrows could scarcely pass 
each other, and across which two persons might shake hands 
out of their windows. None of these have been altered 
for hundreds of years ; as they are to-day, so they were 
when rival families sallied out with all their gayly dressed 
men-at-arms and retainers, ready either to give the people 
a pageant, or each other a passage-at-arms. 

The city being built on a steej) slope, there are various 
breakneck ascents, tortuous streets, now and then helped 
out by rough and uneven steps, over which the poorer 
houses seem to hang or totter. These are called salite, or 
ascents, and lead more directly than the fine winding drives, 
to the acqua sola or the new ramparts, or, again, to the new 
roadway — in Italian, the circumvallation road — which is 
really a splendid boulevard on the hills behind the town, 
leading along the slope, past the great hospital (holding 
1,300 patients), and across a viaduct to the Piazza Manin, 
329 feet above the sea, and ending near the beautiful gar- 
dens of the Pelazzo, or Villa Gropallo. 

Republics in those days were not such as they are now ; 
and, except in their relations to outsiders, they were as 
feudal as any dukedom or principality. A few families led 
the State, while the populace was divided into parties under 
their protection. The armor-maker of the Doria hated the 
draper of the Durazzo just as much as he did the draper's 
patron ; the people had no real sense of their rights, and 
no idea of protecting them otherwise than by the interfer- 
ence of some great lord, whom they repaid by intense prac- 
tical devotion to him in his personal quarrels. 

Italy was very different in this respect from Flanders, 
where, although the name of republic was unknown until 
the sixteenth century, the principles of popular govern- 
ment were jealously kept up, in spite of sovereign, count, 



I 



AROUND THE WORLD. 391 

or baron, or even bishop, as in the case of manly but tur- 
bulent Liege. 

But as we look on these proud houses of Genoa, built 
for retinues, almost for armies, and now empty, save for 
some small remnant of their ancient owners, who are con- 
tent with an apartment of half a dozen rooms on the third 
floor, we realize the terrible fall of these families, once the 
equals of kings, and then turn to the strange contrast pre- 
sented by the descendants of their whilom clients among 
the people. They are still in the same position ; they have 
neither fallen nor risen ; they still depend mainly on others, 
and rely on any one rather than on themselves ; the only 
difference being, that the Government, and especially the 
foreign visitors, are now their props — the former but a 
worthless one in time of real need, the latter a true Provi- 
dence, amiably ready to be fleeced at any moment ! 

Among the many narrow streets, there is one which 
might well be called Fairy-land. It is that in which the 
jewellers' shops are grouped, and is called Strada degli 
Orefici, or " Street of the Gold-workers." 

It takes many hours to walk down this dingy lane, for 
on each side are booths, dirty and carelessly guarded, but 
yet full of the loveliest treasures that woman can envy or 
artist admire. The famed Genoa filigree- work in gold and 
silver is still seen in its perfection in these little shops, in 
which the master sits in neglige, scarcely minding his ex- 
posed wares, and working at his beautiful trade with, per- 
haps, but little appreciation of its beauty. There is no 
show or display, scarcely even glass cases, except in a few 
more pretentious stalls; but the beautiful designs denote 
either that the workers in gold are born artists, or have 
kept the traditions of their craft well. To judge by their 
nonchalance and matter-of-fact way of disposing of their 
treasures, you would scarcely imagine the former to be the 
case. 



392 GRANT'S TOUR 

The designers of jewelry, in the days when jewelry was 
a recognized art, were the equals of painters or sculptors ; 
but in these days, though they may be artists still, they 
never earn a place in the Temple of Fame. In Genoa, 
many a poor man, crushed by the necessities of life, and 
perha]3s by domestic circumstances, chooses this precarious 
way of getting his livelihood. He is poorly paid, and not 
over-well treated by the comfortable jeweller, who, though 
he has no ambition to make a show at his stall, has yet a 
very good trade and a prosperous outlook. It is to the poor 
drudge that we often owe the beautiful thoughts so delicately 
worked out in those wonderful ornaments which no modern 
skill has yet been able to imitate in other countries. True, 
this work is also done at Malta, and we know that in India 
similar specimens are often found ; indeed, the industry 
came to Genoa from the East, and the delicate Italian im- 
agination perfected the intricate work of Oriental fingers 
and brains. 

Here in the Strada degli Orefici, one sees every variety 
of gold and silver crosses ; bouquets of flowers, imitated 
with wonderful accuracy; horns of plenty; pens in the 
shape of palms or feathers ; arrows, swords, and pins for 
the hair ; hollow balls of marvellous workmanship, boxes 
and baskets ; bells, card-cases, charms ; models of Gothic 
churches, spires, and buttresses complete, looking like 
spiders' webs changed into gold threads ; little ships, with 
every rope and spar distinctly copied; miniature chairs and 
tables, vases, cups and saucers, fans, and hand-screens — 
everything, useful or ornamental, that can be copied in fili- 
gree and look well in a bride's boudoir. Sometimes you 
will see rosaries, — not the least beautiful of these trifles, — 
every hollow bead of a different yet harmonious design, and 
the cross at the end more elaborate than all. Reliquaries, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 393 

too, are not infrequent, and bindings for missals and Psal- 
ters. 

Among the objects of special attention, however, may 
sometimes be found things of doubtful taste, such as gold 
and silver filigree crowns for favorite statues of the Ma- 
donna, or other adornments to be placed flat upon the- sur- 
face of a miraculous picture. Frames, of course, would be 
quite in keeping with good taste, as much as missal bind- 
ings or any other normal decoration of our religious sym- 
bols, but the devotion, of the Italians sometimes leads them 
into deviations, from strict artistic rules. The Genoese 
artificers share this tendency ; but then their work, even if 
in bad taste as to the use to which it is put, is so exquisite 
in itself that we should be churlish to complain. 

At the entrance of the Strada degli Oreficiy the eye is 
caught by a door with a mediseval bass-relief representing 
the adoration of the magi, or wise men. This is said by 
artists to date from the middle of the fifteenth century, the 
days when Columbus was already searching for a patron 
and dreaming of the New World. 

The Duomo, dedicated to St. Lawrence, whose martyr- 
dom is sculptured in the archaic style of the thirteenth 
century, over the gallery, dates from 1100, and represents 
an older church from the same spot. The general effect 
is sombre and impressive, though later Renaissance taste 
has somewhat spoilt and blurred parts of the interior. The 
old lions guarding the wide flight of steps are in keeping 
with the huge doors bearing the sculptured story of Christ's 
infancy and earlier miracles, and the massive substructure 
of the towers beyond them forms a dark and suggestive 
vestibule to the nave, with its lighter columns and colored 
marbles. The carving everywhere, from the quaint choir- 
stalls to the marble statues of saints, is ingenious and elab- 
orate. But perhaps the most interesting sight is the treas- 



394 GRANT'S TOUR 

ury, witK its marvellous collection of relics and jewels. In 
Italy these two are synonymous. Gems fit for the crown 
jewels are to be found even in obscure shrines, fitted into 
a relic-case, or some object connected with worship, such 
as bishops' croziers, chasubles, chalices, etc. The boast of 
Genoa's cathedral is the vaso catino, supposed to be a dish 
fashioned of a single emerald, which, says tradition, was 
used by our Lord at the Last Supper, and in which Joseph 
of Arimathea afterwards preserved a few drops . of the 
Saviour's blood. As far as history goes, it is known that 
the Genoese captured this vessel, a glass of pure, transpar- 
ent green color, but of uncertain date, at the taking of Ces- 
area, during one of the Crusades. It was this dish which 
gave rise to the beautiful mediaeval legend of the Holy 
Grail, which Tennyson has clothed anew for us, and con- 
nected with the legends of King Arthur and the Knights 
of the Round Table. 

Another church I remember among the many in Genoa 
is a small one, St. Matthew's, queerly enclosed in a nar- 
row little square, and filled within with fine sculptures and 
funeral inscriptions relating to the Dorias. The great ad- 
miral's sword hangs above the high altar, and to the left is 
a specimen of those beautiful cloisters of which St. Paul's 
at Home and St. John Lateran have such renowned re- 
mains. The double columns, twisted or curled, bound 
together, some like sheaves, some like fasces, some like 
petrified reeds, surround a silent quadrangle, where grave- 
stones make the pavement and rank grass grows among 
them. Opposite this church, the family sepulchre of the 
Dorias, and closing up this dark piazzetta, is the old Doria 
palace, the lower half built in courses of alternate black 
and yellow marble, and on the facade these words, in Latin : 
" The public gift of the Consular Senate to Andrew Doria, 
the liberator of his country." 



AROUND THE WORLD, 395 

Tlie old city, however, contains many gorgeous, compar- 
atively modern fanes, where gilding and show are quite in 
keeping with the original design of the builder. For 
instance, there is the dazzling Church of the Annunziata, 
about two hundred and fifty years old, with variegated 
marble floor ; forests of columns, all of different marbles ; 
chapels full of rich golden lamps, hanging from jewelled 
chains ; a roof, or rather ceiling, of great richness, divided 
into numberless panels by the costliest of carved and gilt 
work, each panel being a fresco representing a scene in the 
life of the Blessed Virgin. 

One of the modern — indeed, one might say recent — 
glories of Genoa, is the beautiful monument to Columbus, 
at the western extremity of the town, in a piazza by the 
railroad-station and the gardens of the Villa Doria. This 
has existed upwards of ten or fifteen years, and is the work 
of Genoese artists. The great discoverer is represented 
standing in the costume of a scholar of his day, leaning 
with one hand on an anchor, and his other hand on the 
shoulder of a kneeling Indian, crowned with feathers, and 
carrying a cross in his hand. At the four corners of 
the pedestal are several allegorical figures, life-size, and 
above them a circle of ships' prows and laurel wreaths, 
set alternately. Four bassi-relievi give scenes from his 
life, and on the lowest base of the monument, two flying 
genii uphold the simple inscription, ^'A Cristoforo Co- 
lombo, La Patria" — "His Country to Christopher Colum- 
bus." 

One cannot help thinking of what might have been 
the present position of Genoa, had she, as an independent 
State, listened to Columbus, and fitted out a fleet for him 
to explore the New World and conquer it in her name. 
The Italians of those days stood in the first rank among 
the nations of the world ; by their side the Spaniards, the 



396 GRANT'S TOUR 

Portuguese, the Germans, and the English were but unlet- 
tered barbarians. Her statesmen were acknowledged to be 
the masters of diplomacy ; her merchants were .wealthier 
and more enterprising than any, and, at the same time, they 
were not mere traders, but men of culture and education ; 
generous patrons of art, competent critics of letters. Even 
the soldiers of Northern Italy were gaining a name that 
rivalled that of the fierce Spaniards, and her captains, at 
least, were known as skilful strategists, learned engineers, 
and men versed in the art of leading the minds, as well as 
directing the operations, of their mercenaries. 

As yet no open discussion had taken place as to religious 
matters ; the authority of the Church was undisputed by 
the governors of republics and princedoms ; a magnificent, 
distant foreign conquest, such as that of Southern America, 
would have safely united the sympathies of the whole 
Genoese people in one healthy burst of excitement and 
interest ; the Church would have sanctioned the undertak- 
ing ; the nobles and merchants would have had a wider field 
in which to display a more generous rivalry than that of 
gaining the executive power for a few years, and ousting 
each other, within the limits of a very small territory. 
Genoa would very likely have sprung to the first place 
among Italian States, and would have carried civilization, 
commerce, and art to the shores of the newly-discovered 
continent, far better than could the Spaniards, ferocious 
by nature, and scarcely emerging from the state of barba- 
rism which their frequent wars against the Saracens had 
made almost normal. The passions of the Italians were 
rather for power than for gold, and things might have 
been changed indeed, had they, instead of the Spaniards, 
visited the flourishing empires of Mexico and Peru. 

But it was not so decreed; and after having seen the 
Indies slip from her grasp, and her son, courageous to the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 397 

last, die the victim of a foreign king, Genoa relapsed into 
carelessness for nearly four hundred years, and then sought 
to repair the wrong done to him, and the loss suffered by 
herself, by putting up a beautiful monument to her hero. 
Vain honors ! The sceptre that has once fallen from the 
hands of any given race can never be recovered, and post- 
humous honors are powerless to increase the fame of one 
whom the world knows as the exile of Genoa. ' His native 
city wilfully lost all share in his glory, and cannot recall 
the decision by which she ignorantly stamped him as a vi- 
sionary. America itself is his true monument, and were 
Genoa to sink into the Mediterranean to-morrow, the name 
of her daring but expelled son would still live in more tri- 
umphant remembrance than that of her own merchant- 
princes and naval heroes. 

The gardens of the Acqua Sola, on the hill behind 
Genoa, are the public promenade of the city; they are not 
large, but are well laid out, and command a beautiful sea- 
view. Here, in the late afternoon, come the carriages of 
the wealthier people of Genoa, and hundreds of loungers 
on foot ; plenty of soldiers beguiling white-veiled maidens 
with their traditional and ephemeral compliments; beggars 
looking for a harvest of coppers, and sometimes mounte- 
banks of various kinds, who know that these shady gar- 
dens at sunset are the paradise of the idle and the beau- 
ideal of the wearied showman. 

From this inclosure one can drive along the ramparts 
that skirt the crest of the hill, and along whose jutting 
edges lie piled cannon-balls and huge guns, like alligators 
lying in the sun. The peaceful sea beyond looks as if it 
had never been covered with hostile fleets, coming to attack 
or surprise the thriving, populous Genoa of old ; and yet 
what a busy life old Neptune has seen at the mouth of that 
harbor ! Not only warlike scenes, but naval pageants hail- 



398 GRANT'S TOUR 

ing the return of the conqueror who had humbled Venice 
or stricken the Infidel ; convoys of richly-laden ships from 
the marts of the East ; captive vessels from Turkey and 
Barbary ; corsair allies ; French, English, Spanish visitors, 
whose colors, now flying gayly at the masthead, might de- 
note hidden treachery in the future — many and many a 
sight and a scene, down to this day's prosaic steamer enter- 
ing the port from Marseilles, or the humble fishing-smacks 
coming in to sell their j)rizes at the city markets. So we 
wind down again, through steep, abrupt streets, back into 
the "dim, rich city," with its many gardens and s^DOts of 
greenery. 

Another famous garden — a private one, but always 
open to the well-behaved, and kept by a not very formid- 
able dragon, in the shape of a gossipping old portress, is 
that of the Villa Doria, a little outside the town on the 
western extremity. It faces the sea, and its marble para- 
pets run down to meet the water. The villa, a large build- 
ing, which would be called a palace if it were in a more 
central position, stands at the back. The garden is a kind 
of miniature Versailles, full of statues of nymphs and 
goddesses, satyrs and philosophers ; some old and dug out 
of classic baths, or brought from Home ; some of the Re- 
naissance school, with flying drapery and afiected pos- 
tures. Carved parapets, marble fountains, old stone seats, 
etc., complete this museum-garden, where there are more 
statues than trees, and more marble walls than evergreen 
hedges. 

Further on, and quite out of town, is another garden — 
that of the Villa Pallavicini, at Pegli, and really a sight 
worth seeing, and kept in perfect order by the owners. 
Formal and old-fashioned, it is not neglected, and here and 
there a modern idea, patched on to the stately expanse, 
seems rather a surprise than a shock. One part is soberly 



AROUND THE WORLD. 399 

laid out in straight walks, hedged with grass, and leading 
to a little temple half hidden in a grove of evergreens. 
From this you stray into a more loosely arranged " English 
garden," with creepers and vines, smooth lawns and flower- 
beds, with the vista of a grotto in the distance. The grotto 
turns out to be a stalactite cave, full of unex23ected sights ; 
wonderful chambers hung with petrified icicles, or coated 
with glistening matter, shining like diamond dust (all this 
carefully imitated, or at least artificially produced), to rep- 
resent the great cave of Adelsburg, near Trieste. 

After a walk of a few hundred yards under these arch- 
ways and through those underground halls, you come to a 
sheet of water ; the torches throw a red glare on the walls, 
to which, by iron rings and chains, are attached a few 
small boats. The guide deposits you in one of these skiffs, 
and intrusting the torches to your care, takes to the oars. 
A few windings bring you out through a tall, narrow 
archway, overhung with ivy, into a broad basin, where 
Fairyland seems to begin. 

Swans are sailing up and down ; but there are other 
inhabitants of this fair crystal port. In the centre of this 
sheet of water rises a snow-white temple, a cupola sup- 
ported by marble pillars. Diana, with her bow, stands 
within, while just outside the steps that lead into the 
water, are four sea-horses, with human heads and shoul- 
ders and conchs in their hands, looking to the four quar- 
ters of the globe. They seem as though just about to start 
on a wild, frolicsome race, and to throw the spray in your 
face with their forked tails as you passed them in the boat. 
All around the shores of the miniature lake stretches the 
beautiful turf; but the promontories jut into the water. 
Yonder grove conceals the base of an arbor built pagoda 
fashion, and whose glittering colors and hanging bells carry 
your imagination far into the dreamy regions of Cathay. 



400 GRANT'S TOUR 

There are few such gardens as these m all Italy; they 
belong to a lost state of things — the flavor of the sixteenth 
century hangs about them, and the least incongruous deni- 
zens would be those merry, witty, but scarcely moral dis- 
putants and minstrels who haunted the gardens of the 
courtly Medici at Fiesole. 

A modern croquet-party would be out of place here, 
however animated the players and elaborate the costumes ; 
the mere common intercourse of present social life would 
be an insult to the spirit of the jDlace. The gray-clad 
soberness of this utilitarian age is but a sorry substitute 
for the artistic, if misdirected, enthusiasm of those times ; 
and if we rejoice that the facile indecorum of by-gone days 
has disappeared, we cannot but be sorry that with it has 
gone all the grace, the culture, the social animation of the 
class that figured so largely in their pageants. 

Genoa has many other villas, not quite so conspicuous 
or well kept, but still beautiful; for instance, the Villa 
Kosazza, with its formal parterre, and its marble fountain 
— the villa where Dickens lived for part of a year ; and 
others often let to foreigners, to the resident consuls, or to 
rich merchants, whether native or foreign. 

Keturning to the city after this excursion into a spright- 
lier atmosphere, we pass by the large, gloomy theatre of 
Carlo Felice. It is almost as large as the San Carlo of 
Naples, and La Scala of Milan ; but it is not often that 
one sees these magnificent houses pro23erly filled, nor the 
stage properly tenanted. Genoa can no longer afford to 
lure to herself the great singers of the day, and the opera 
season is only second-rate, after all. Still, it is much the 
fashion, and, as everywhere else in Italy, it affords an 
excellent opportunity for informal visiting. Except dur- 
ing the well-known arias, no one minds the music ; the 
opera is a social club where friends meet and chatter. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 401 

No one, except on State occasions, goes in full dress ; 
every bright demi-toilette passes muster ; every one chat- 
ters; the boxes fill and re-fill, as men pass from one to the 
other of their fair acquaintances ; the stage is the last 
thing thought of. Presently the prima donna or tenor 
comes forward with great demonstrations of rage, love, or 
despair, and the whole house is hushed. While the aria 
lasts, not a word is spoken; but the moment it is over, and 
the customary applause has subsided, the spell is broken, 
and the stream of conversation flows on anew. 

These theatre receptions are a cheap way of paying off 
social scores, as they involve no lights, no decorations, and 
no refreshments, save the occasional ices and wafers that 
are brought round to the boxes between the acts, and 
which, if paid for at all, are paid for by the gentlemen 
who happen to be the guests of the box for the time being. 

I once heard rather a good story illustrative of this in- 
expensive system of seeing and entertaining your friends, 
but it did not refer to Genoa. Still, the system is carried 
on in most Italian cities, where there are large and beau- 
tiful theatres, and a comfortable box is a cheap luxury 
whereby fuel may be saved in the evening. The incident 
was this: — An English family hired an apartment in an 
old palace, the widowed owner having left it for the winter 
— so said the agent — fully stocked with fuel. This lady 
belonged to a very good old family, but her fortune was 
slender. After a few weeks the tenants found the fuel 
running short, and indignantly taxed the agent with de- 
ceiving them. He answered by a question as to how and 
when they used it. 

" Why," was the reply, " we keep a fire in every room 
all day." 

"And all the evening, too? " asked the agent. 

" Of course." 



402 GRANT'S TOUR 

" No wonder ! " lie said, with a comical gesture of sur- 
prise. "Madame la Marquise only used a small fire in one 
room on very cold days, and a foot-warmer the rest of the 
time." 

"How did she manage at night, then? and did she 
never see visitors ? " 

" She spent her evenings in her box," explained the 
agent, " and asked her friends there. If she chanced to be 
unwell, and not able to go out, she would sit at home, with 
her fur cloak on, and go to bed early." 

But though Genoa, like all other Italian towns, has 
many decayed noble families, proud and poor, she has also 
a few rich old families, such as the Durazzo, whose mag- 
nificent palace is fitted up with more modern luxuries than 
it contains antique treasures ; and many comfortable, un- 
assuming families of less pedigree, but progressive, educated, 
enterprising, and successful, both in commerce and in learn- 
ing. There are art societies, and scientific meetings, and 
boards of education ; a great activity in politics and the 
press, and a public feeling which is wisely and patriotically 
directed rather towards the national advancement of the 
country as a whole, than towards the glorification of the 
local part. The secret societies were once very strong in 
Genoa, and even at present those nurseries of Socialism 
are not inactive; but, on the whole, the city has too much 
at stake to be able to affect red republicanism. Northern 
and central Italy — that is, the living Italy of the Middle 
Ages — is still the backbone of the new nation. 

One more thing a stranger, however cursory his visit," 
will notice in Genoa, and that is the guttural dialect, harsh 
as the ruggedest German. The conventional beauty of 
Italian is practically a scarce thing. The popular talk of 
most provinces is either mincing, as near Milan, soft and 
slurring, as at Venice — where, but for the tone, one would 



AROUND THE WORLD. 403 

think the very hucksters were coaxing babies to sleep — 
harsh, as at and near Genoa, hammer-like, as at Naples, 
where the tone is also ear-piercing ; and even at Florence, 
where the purest grammar is common to the highest and 
lowest alike, the pronunciation and frequent aspirations — 
replacing the c by the h sound — render the language 
affected. The broad Roman accent sounds grand in the 
mouth of an educated person, and reminds you, somehow, 
of the roll of the Latin, as probably spoken by the sena- 
tors and jurists of the Republic; but it turns to something 
very like "mouthing" when used by the people in general ; 
however, I think, as an accent, it is far preferable to any 
in Italy. The voice of Italians is also generally a draw- 
back to beauty of diction. Even cultivated persons, and 
women no less than men, have loud, strident voices; and 
in the traditional "land of song" you find far more of what 
we should call a vulgar intonation than you will discover 
among persons of corresponding station and education in 
English-speaking communities. On the other hand, you 
will meet with natural courtesy far greater than that at- 
tending the best-bred people of our race ; for centuries of 
polish and traditions of elegance in manner have done their 
work, and left the Italian beggar less of a barbarian than 
the Anglo-Saxon millionnaire. 

There is more business done in Genoa than in any 
other town in Italy, and a large part of its trade is with 
the United States. Roughly speaking, the yearly imports 
and exports average, the former nearly $60,000,000, the 
latter $40,000,000. 

Among the wealthy and public-spirited men who have 
lately died, was the Duke of Galliera, who left the city 
14,000,000 for the improvement of the harbor, on condition 
that the municipal government should advance the rest of 
the sum required to carry out the improvements. A large 



404 GRANT'S TOUR.. 

new mole is being built, and the present new mole length- 
ened, so that it will still continue to be the outer pier. In 
addition to this, quays by rails with the main line are pro- 
jected, with a view to enable the largest ships to unload 
without lighters. 

The inclosed Porto Franco, with its extensive bonded 
warehouses, is another of the works which, even at present, 
show how Genoa, while proud of her artistic relics, is not 
content to rest on her mediaeval laurels. If the inner parts 
of the city are wonderfully unchanged, its sea-edge, on the 
contrary, is changing for the better every day ; and, while 
the former picturesqueness is untouched, the visitor need 
not grudge the less beautiful but healthy signs of activity 
about the quays. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

BACK TO PARIS THE EXPOSITION^ ENJOYING PARIS 

LIFE GENERAL GRANT AND THE PRINCE OF WALES 

WITNESS A GAME OF POLO — A VISIT TO HOLLAND 

EN ROUTE FOR GERMANY AT BERLIN THE PLENI- 

POS INTERVIEW WITH BISMARCK REMINISCENCES 

OF "little PHIL" THEY DISCUSS AMERICA, EUROPE, 

AND THE WAR MOTLEY's PROPHECY THE CROWN 

PRINCE GIVES THE GENERAL A REVIEW IN THE RAIN 

BISMARCK CALLS ON MRS. GRANT HIS DINNER 

TO GRANT AMERICAN AND GERMAN FRIENDSHIP 

PLEDGED OVER A GLASS OF SCHNAPPS. 

Leaving Genoa, General Grant and his party returned 
to Paris, wliich point was reached on the 7th of May. At 
that time the Paris Exhibition was the uppermost topic 
of the city. On the 11th, General Grant accompanied by 
his wife and son visited the Exposition. He was received 
by Chief Commissioner McCormick and staff and by the 
Commissioners from the various States of the Union, Min- 
ister Noyes, Consul-General Torbert and wife, and the lead- 
ing ladies and gentlemen of the American colony in Paris. 
The American marines were drawn up in military array 
and gave the party a military salute on their arrival at the 
American section. The General and his party then ex- 
amined the whole American department in detail. They 
spent a good deal of time among Tiffany's exhibit, where 
Bonanza Mackay's gorgeous service of silver j^late, which 
cost $150,000, is exhibited. Then they jDroceeded to the 
machinery department, where the General was placed upon 
a square American platform — that of the Howe scale. 

403 



406 GRANT'S TOUR- 

Grant, in fact, was weighed, and for tlie first time in his 
life " found wanting," having lost seventeen pounds by his 
Egyptian trip. Mr. Cunliffe Owen did the honors in the 
Prince of Wales' pavilion to the General and his party. 
A handsome collation was served in the Alimentation group, 
No. 17, of the American department, after which the party 
proceeded to visit the other sections. 

During their stay in Paris, General Grant and his 
family appeared to enjoy the amenities of Paris life in full. 
Visits were paid to President MacMahon, the Prince of 
Wales, the Due d'Aosta, the Due Saxe-Coburg, Don Fran- 
cisco d'Assis, the Prefect of the Seine, the Prefect of Police, 
and the English, Turkish, Swedish, and Japanese Ministers. 

One of the pleasant things of his stay in Paris was his 
visit to the polo grounds in the Bois de Boulogne. The 
Prince of Wales visited the grounds at the same time, and 
they witnessed a very interesting game. The General was 
accompanied by his family and ex-Minister Beale. The 
General remarked that he thought that the game might be 
introduced with great effect into the cavalry regiments and 
West Point as a good school of horsemanship for young 
soldiers. 

From Paris, Mr. Young writes under date of June 1st : — 
General Grant is the hardest-worked man I know of. 
What between dinners, soirees, marriages, and christen- 
ings, he is busier than ever he was at the White House. 
He is growing visibly thinner upon it, and unless he goes 
away soon, there will be nothing left of him for a third 
Presidential campaign. 

Having remained in Paris little more than a month, 
General Grant and his party left the city for Holland, " to 
recuperate in a series of mild Dutch festivities from the 
mad whirl of festive Paris." Before his departure from 
Paris, General Grant took leave of President MaclNIahon. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 407 

The meeting between the two soldiers was most interesting. 
The Marshal was very cordial, saying " France was hon- 
ored by the presence of so illustrious a general." The 
Marshal further stated that he had arranged to give a din- 
ner and/e^e in honor of General Grant on the following 
Monday. This the General was compelled to decline be- 
cause of his engagements at the Hague. The Marshal 
hoped that General Grant would return in September, 
when he would give a special fete for him. The interview 
throughout was marked by the kindliest of feeling. 

When he was about to leave Paris, Mr. Young wrote : — 
He will tarry seven days in the land of the Dutch, and 
study it with uncommon interest. He will look for the 
children of the race of the Knickerbockers in their native 
wilds, and catch them smoking as only a contemplative 
Dutchman can smoke. 

The Dutch government, which had made extensive 
arrangements for his reception, warmly welcomed him to 
the land of Schiedam Schnapps, and the visit was a very 
pleasant one. From Holland the party went to Germany. 

Berlin was reached Wednesday, the 26th of June. The 
late Bayard Taylor, at that time our Minister to Germany, 
met them at Stendahl, which was sixty miles distant, and 
escorted them to the German capital. 

Concerning the visit, a correspondent of the New York 
Herald says : — On the evening of his coming he walked 
along the Unter den Linden, and his Berlin visit may be 
summed up in this sentence — that he walked the greater 
part of each day. I do not think there is a quarter of Ber- 
lin which he has not explored on foot with an energy as 
sight-seer which no amount of exertion seems to diminish. 

There was an interview with Prince Gortschakoff, the 
General, in company with Mr. Taylor, calling at the 
Prince's request, as the gout prevented the Prince calling 



408 GRANT'S TOUR 

on tlie General. Gortscliakoff said that Russia would be 
glad to see and welcome the General, and he seemed de- 
lig'hted with the visit. Of the members of the Congress, 
Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Salisbury, M. Waddington, and 
Count Corti were known to the General. Mehemet Ali he 
had met in Turkey. Visits were exchanged with these 
gentlemen, and with the other members of the Congress. 

Among the first calls left on the General was that of 
Prince Bismarck, and as it did not find him at home it was 
left again. As the General was anxious to see the Prince, 
for whose character and services he had so high an admi- 
ration, he returned these calls at once, and sent His High- 
ness a message, saying that he would make his visit at any 
time that would suit the Prince, whom he knew to be a 
busy and an ill man. 

The afternoon at four was the hour named for the visit, 
and as the General lives within a few moments' walk of the 
Bismarck palace, at five minutes to four he slowly sauntered 
through the Frederick place. The Frederick place is a 
small square, with roads and flowers and some famous old 
trees, laid out in memory of the great Frederick. It is 
decorated with statues of his leading generals. You know 
that everything runs to war in Germany, and that the pre- 
vailing religion is swordsmanship. In this j)ark are bronze 
statues of Ziethen, Seidlitz, Winterfeldt, Keith, Schwerin, 
and the Prince of Dessau. 

Passing out of the park, you see on your right a build- 
ing, or rather a range of buildings, forming three sides of 
a square. An iron railing separates it from the street. 
Two sentinels are on guard. From the roof the flag of the 
German Empire floats languidly in the sun. The after- 
noon is warm, and it is pleasant to hear the birds singing. 
The buildings are low, straggling, and you note that one 
range of windows is hung with lace curtains. You note 



AROUND THE WORLD. 409 

also that passers-by moderate their pace as they come to it, 
and gaze curiously. For this building now happens to be 
the most interesting place in the political world, because 
in that room, screened by the curtains of lace, sits the Ber- 
lin Congress, and the building itself is the palace and home 
of the famous Prince Bismarck. 

The General saunters into the court-yard, and the sen- 
tinels eye him a moment curiously and then present arms. 
His visit had been expected, but certainly an ex-President 
of the United States w;ould come in a carriage and six and 
not quietly on foot ; throwing away a half-smoked cigar as 
he raises his hat in honor of the salute, he advances to the 
door, but before he has time to ring, two servants throw 
them open, and he passes into an open marble hall. Of 
all princes now living this is, perhaps, the most renowned 
— this of Bismarck-Schonhausen — who comes with a 
swinging, bending gait through the opened and opening 
doors with both hands extended to meet the General. You 
note that time has borne heavily on the Prince these past 
few years. The iron-gray hair and moustache are almost 
white ; there is weariness in the gait, a tired look in the 
face. But all the lines are there that are associates with 
Bismarck ; for if ever manhood, courage, intellect are 
written on a man's face by his Creator, they are written on 
this face of the German Chancellor. There is the lofty 
station, which seems to belong to the Bismarck stamp of 
men, the bold outlines of the brain, under which emjDires 
have found their fate — the frank, intrepid, penetrating 
eye, and in that firmly-knit mouth the courage of the 
Saxon race. The Prince wears an officer's uniform, and on 
taking the General's hand, he says, " Glad to welcome 
General Grant to Germany." 

The General answered that there was no incident in 
his German tour that more interested him than this oppor- 

24 



410 GRANT'S TOUR 

tunity of meeting the Prince. Bismarck expressed sur- 
prise at seeing the General so young a man, but on a com- 
parison of ages it was found that Bismarck was only seven 
years the General's senior. 

" That," said the Prince, " shows the value of a mili- 
tary life ; for here you have the frame of a young man, 
while I feel like an old man." 

The General, smiling, announced that he was at that 
period of life when he could have no higher compliment 
than being called a young man. By this time the Prince 
had escorted the General to a chair. 

It was his library or study, and an open window looked 
out upon a beautiful park, upon which the warm June sun 
was shining. This is the private park of the Badziwill 
Palace, which is now Bismarck's Berlin home. The library 
is a large, spacious room, the walls a gray marble, and the 
furniture plain. In one corner is a large and high writing- 
desk, where the Chancellor works, and on the varnished 
floors a few rugs are thrown. The Prince sj)eaks English 
with |)recision, but slowly, as though lacking in practice, 
now and then taking refuge in a French word, but show- 
ing a thorough command of the language. 

One of the Prince's first questions was about General 
Sheridan. 

" The General and I," said the Prince, " were fellow- 
campaigners in France, and we became great friends." 

General Grant said that he had had letters from Sheri- 
dan recently, and he was quite well. 

" Sheridan," said the Prince, " seemed to be a man of 
great ability." 

" Yes," answered the General ; " I regard Sheridan as 
not only one of the great soldiers of our war, but one of 
the great soldiers of the w^orld — as a man who is fit for 



AROUND THE WORLD. 411 

the highest commands. No better General ever lived than 
Sheridan." 

" I observed," said the Prince, " that he had a wonder- 
fully quick eye. On one occasion, I remember, the Em- 
peror and his staff took up a position to observe a battle. 
The Emperor himself was never near enough to the front, 
was always impatient to be as near the fighting as possible. 
' Well,' said Sheridan to me, as we rode along, ' we shall 
never stay here, the enemy will, in a short time, make this 
so untenable that we shall all be leaving in a hurry. Then 
while the men are advancing they will see us retreating.' 
Sure enough, in an hour or so the cannon-shot began ta 
plunge this way and that way, and we saw we must leave. 
It was difficult to move the Emperor, however ; but we all 
had to go, and," said the Prince, with a hearty laugh, " we 
went rapidly. Sheridan had seen it from the beginning. 
I wish I had so quick an eye." 

The Prince then asked about Sheridan's command — 
his exact rank, his age, how long he held the command, 
and remarked that he was about the same age as the Crown 
Prince. 

The General made a reference to the deliberations of 
the Congress, and hoped there would be a peaceful result. 

" That is my hope and belief," said the Prince. " That 
is all our interest in the matter. We have no business with 
the Congress whatever, and are attending to the busi- 
ness of others by calling a Congress. But Germany wants 
peace, and Europe wants peace, and all our labors are to 
that end. In the settlement of the questions arising out 
of the San Stefano Treaty, Germany has no interest pf a 
selfish character. I suppose," said the Prince, " the whole 
situation may be summed up in this phrase, in making the 
treaty Pussia ate more than she could digest, and the 
main business of the Congress is to relieve her. The 



412 GRANT'S TOUR 

war has been severe upon Kussia, and of course slie wants 
peace." 

The General asked how long the Congress would 
probably sit, and the Prmce answered that he thought 
seven or eight more sittings would close the business. " I 
wish it was over," he said, " for Berlin is warm, and I want 
to leave it." 

The Prince said that another reason why he was sorry 
the Congress was in siession was that he could not take 
General Grant around and show him Berlin. He said also 
that the Emperor himself was disajopointed in not being 
able to see the General. 

"His Majesty," said the Prince, "has been expecting 
you, and has the greatest interest in your character and 
history and in your visit to Germany. He commands me 
to say that nothing but his doctor's orders that he shall see 
no one prevents his seeing you." 

The General said, "I am sorry that I cannot have 
that honor, but I am far more sorry for the cause, and hope 
the Em]3eror is recovering." 

"All the indications are of the best," answered the 
Prince, " for the Emperor has a fine constitution and great 
courage and endurance ; but you know he is a very old 
man." 

"That," said the General, " adds to the horror one feels 
for the crime." 

" It is so strange, so strange and so sad," answered the 
Prince, with marked feeling. " Here is an old man — - one 
of the kindest old gentlemen in the world — and yet they 
must try and shoot him ! There never was a more simple, 
more genuine, more — what shall I say — more humane 
character than the Emperor's. He is totally unlike men 
born in his station, or many of them at least. You know 
that men who come into the world in his rank, born 



AROUND THE WORLD. 413 

princes, are apt to tliink themselves of another race and 
another world. They are apt to take small account of the 
wishes and feelings of others. All their education tends 
to deaden the human side. But this Emperor is so much 
©f a man in all things ! He never did any one a wrong in 
his life. He never wounded any one's feelings ; never im- 
posed a hardship ! He is the most genial and winning of 
men — thinking always, anxious always, for the comfort 
and welfare of his people — of those around him. You 
cannot conceive a finer type of the noble, courteous, chari- 
table old gentleman, with every high quality of a prince, 
as well as every virtue of a man. I should have supposed 
that the Emperor could have walked alone all over the 
Empire withotit harm, and yet they must try and shoot 
him. 

" In some respects," said the Prince, continuing as if in 
half a revery, and as if speaking of a subject upon which 
he had been thinking a great deal, " in some respects the 
Emperor resembles his ancestor, Frederick William, the 
father of Frederick the Great. The difference between 
the two is that the old king would be severe and harsh at 
times to those around him, while the Em23eror is never 
harsh to any one. But the old king had so much sim- 
plicity of character, lived an austere, home-loving, domestic 
life ; had all the republican qualities. So with this king ; 
he is so republican in all things that even the most ex- 
treme republican, if he did his character justice, would 
admire him." 

Prince Bismarck then said the Emperor was especially 
sorry that he could not in person show General Grant a 
review, and that the Crown Prince would give him one. 
" But," said the Prince, " the old gentleman is so much of 
a soldier and so fond of his army that nothing would give 



414 GRANT'S TOUR 

liim more pleasure than to display it to so great a soldier 
as yourself." 

The General said that he had accepted the Crown 
Prince's invitation to a review for next morning, but with 
a smile continued : — " The truth is I am more of a farmer 
than a soldier. I take little or no interest in military 
affairs, and, although I entered the army thirty-five years 
ago and have been in two wars, in Mexico as a young lieu- 
tenant, and later, I never went into the army without re- 
gret and never retired without pleasure." 

"You are so happily placed," said the Prince, "in 
America that you need fear no wars. What always seemed 
so sad to me about your last great war was that you were 
fighting your own people. That is always* so terrible in 
wars, so very hard." 

" But it had to be done," said the General. 

" Yes," said the Prince ; " you had to save the Union 
just as we had to save Germany." . 

" Not only save the Union, but destroy slavery," an- 
swered the General. 

" I suppose, however, the Union was the real sentiment 
— the dominant sentiment," said the Prince. 

"In the beginning, yes," said the General; "but as 
soon as slavery fired upon the flag, it was felt — we all felt, 
even those who did not object to slaves — that slavery must 
be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union 
that men should be bought and sold like cattle." 

" I had an old and good friend, an American, Motley," 
said the Prince, "who used to write me now and then. 
Well, when your war broke out he wrote me. He said, 
' I will make a prophecy, and please take this letter and 
jjut it in a tree or box for ten years, then open it and see 
if I am not a prophet. I prophesy that when this war 
ends, the Union will be established, and we shall not lose a 



AROUND THE WORLD. 415 

village or a hamlet.' This was Motley's prophecy," said 
the Prince, with a smile, " and it was true." 

" Yes," said the General, " it was true." 

" I suppose if you had had a large army at the begin- 
ning of the war, it would have ended in a much shorter 
time." 

"We might have had no war at all," said the General; 
" but we cannot tell. Our war had many strange features 
— many things which seemed odd enough at the time, but 
which now seem providential. If we had had a large reg- 
ular army, as it was then constituted, it might have gone 
with the South. In fact, the Southern feeling in the army 
among high officers was so strong, that when the war broke 
out the army dissolved. We had no army ; then we had 
to organize one. A great commander like Sherman or 
Sheridan even then might have organized an army and 
put down the rebellion in six months or a year, or, at the 
furthest, two years. But that would have saved slavery, 
perhaps, and slavery meant the germs of new rebellion. 
There had to be an end of slavery. Then we were fight- 
ing an enemy with whom we could not make a peace. We 
had to destroy him. No convention, no treaty, was possi- 
ble — only destruction." 

" It was a long war," said the Prince, " and a great work 
well done ; and I suppose it means a long peace." 

" I believe so," said the General. 

The Prince asked the General when he might have the 
pleasure of seeing Mrs. Grant. The General answered that 
she would receive him at any convenient hour. 

" Then," said the Prince, " I will come to-morrow before 
the Congress meets." 

Both gentlemen arose, and the General renewed the ex- 
pression of his pleasure at having seen a man who was so 
well known and so highly esteemed in America. 



416 GRANT'S TOUR 

" General," answered tlie Prince, " tlie pleasure and tlie 
honor are mine. Germany and America have always been 
in so friendly a relation, that nothing delights us more 
than to meet Americans, and especially an American who 
has done so much for his country, and whose name is so 
much., honored in Germany as your own." 

The Prince and the General walked side by side to the 
door, and after shaking hands the General passed into the 
square. The guard presented arms, and the General lit a 
fresh cigar and slowly strolled home. 

" I am glad I have seen Bismarck," he remarked. " He 
is a man whose manner and bearing fully justify the oi^in- 
ions one forms of him. What he says about the Emperor 
was beautifully said, and should be known to all the Ger- 
mans and those who esteem Germany." 

Prominent among the events of the visit to Berlin was 
a quiet, informal reception given the General by Mr. Tay- 
lor, our American Minister. The evening was passed in 
an enjoyable and interesting manner. On the following day 
there was a small dinner-party at the Embassy. The re- 
mainder of the day was spent in sight-seeing. 

The Crown Prince sent word to General Grant asking 
him to name an hour when he would review some trooj)S 
in all arms. The General answered that any hour most 
convenient for the troops would be joleasant to him. So it 
was arranged at half-past seven in the morning. The Gen- 
eral asked Mr. Coleman, of the Legation, to be one of his 
company. It had rained all night, a heavy, j^itching, blow- 
ing rain, and when the morning came, the prayers which 
Mr, Coleman had been offering up all night for better 
weather were found to have availed not. The General 
himself had a severe cold and a chill, which had been 
hanging over him for two days, and when he arose, he 
could scarcely speak. There was a suggestion that the re- 



I 



AROUND THE WORLD: 417 

view might be postponed. But the troops were under way, 
as we learned, and the General would not hear of the sug- 
gestion. He only hoped, he said, when the Crown Prince's 
officer came to attend him, that the dis23lay would be as 
brief as possible, and not severe upon the men. The place 
selected was the Templehof, a large, open field outside of 
Berlin. When General Grant drove on the ground, in a 
j)alace carriage, he was met by the General commanding 
the Berlin troops, and a large staff. A horse from the 
royal stables was waiting, but the General Avas suffering so 
much that he would not mount. The rain kept its wild 
way, and the wind swept it in gusts across the open field, 
so much so, that in a few moments, even with the protec- 
tion of a carriage, we were all thoroughly drenched. 

The manoeuvres went on all the same. There was a 
sham fight with infantry, all the incidents of a real battle 
— moving on the flank, in skirmish line, firing and retreat- 
ing, firing and advancing. Then came the order to fix 
bayonets and charge at double quick, the soldiers shouting 
and cheering as they advanced, with that ringing cheer 
which, somehow, no one hears but in Saxon lands, and 
which stirs the blood like a trumpet. The General was 
attended by Major Igel, an intelligent ofiicer. The Gen- 
eral complimented the movement of the troops highly, but 
said he questioned very much whether in modern war the 
sabre or bayonet were of use. 

After the manoeuvres and the sham fight, there was a 
march past, the General reviewing the line with bared head, 
to which the pitiless rain showed no mercy. 

"These are fine soldiers," he said, and thanked the 
commander for his courtesy. 

Then came the artillery practice, the guns firing and 
sweeping over the field in a whirling, mad j3ace. This was 
followed by an artillery march past, which the General re- 



418 GRANT'S TOUR 

viewed on foot, tlie rain beating down. Then came cavalry. 
This was the most interesting phase of the display, espe- 
cially one movement where the battalion broke into dis- 
order and rallied again. 

" This," said the Major, " we do to accustom our men 
to the contingency of disorder on the field, and enable every 
man to know how to take care of himself" The movement 
was eifective and beautiful, and showed, said the General, 
the highest state of discipline. It was followed by a charge 
and a march past, the General on foot reviewing, and the 
rain whirling like a gust. 

After this we all drove to a military hospital and in- 
spected it. Then to the quarters of a cavalry regiment 
under the command of the Prince of Hohenzollern. The 
General was received by the officers, and went carefully 
through the quarters. He observed that the mare was 
more used in the Prussian than in the American cav- 
alry service, which, he said; " I think to be an advantage." 
He thought the soldiers, in their exercises, used the spur 
too much. After inspection, there was a quiet mess-room 
lunch, and a good deal of military talk, which showed that 
the General had not forgotten his trade: 

The General, at the close of the lunch, asked permission 
to propose the prosperity of the regiment, and the health 
of the colonel. It was a regiment of which any army 
would be proud, and he hoped a day of trial would never 
come ; but if it did, he was sure it would do its part to 
maintain the ancient success of the Prussian army. He 
also desired to express his thanks to the Crown Prince for 
the pains that have been taken to show him this sample of 
his magnificent army. The Prince answered in German, 
which Major Igel translated, that he was much comj^li- 
mented by the General's toast, and that the annals of his 
regiment would always record the pride they felt in having 



AROUND THE WORLD. 419 

had at tlieir mess and as their guest so illustrious a leader. 
This closed the military services of the day, and we drove 
home. On our way home, the skies relented and the sun 
began to shine. 

On reaching the hotel about noon, a rustle in the crowd 
that never leaves the pavement in front of the Kaiserhof, 
watching Grant, Beaconsfield, and the famous men who 
live here, showed that something special was on foot. The 
General went to his apartment, and a few minutes later a 
coupe was seen driving around the square, people were seen 
running after, the guard presented arms, passers-by stopped 
and saluted, waiters and cafe idlers came rushing out, hold- 
ing napkins and mugs of beer. Then came that whisper 
that somehow gets into the air when any unusual event is 
happening. " Bismarck 's coming." In a moment the 
coupe stopped, and the Prince descended and touched his 
hat to the crowd. He wore a full military uniform, a 
gilded helmet covering" his brows, and was conducted to 
the apartments of the General. 

The General presented the Prince to his wife and Mrs. 
Taylor, the wife of the Minister. The Prince expressed 
again his satisfaction at seeing General Grant and his wife 
in Germany, and hoped Mrs. Grant would carry home the 
best impressions of the country. It had been raining, and 
the skies were heavy with clouds, and the General himself, 
suffering from a cold, had been sitting in a carriage for two 
hours, the rain beating on his face, watching horsemen, ar- 
tillery, and infantry march and countermarch over the 
Templehof grounds. Altogether it had been a trying day, 
and everybody felt cheerless and damp. But Mrs. Grant 
has a nature that would see as much sunshine in Alaska as 
in Italy, on whose temper rain or snow never makes an 
impression, and she told His Highness how delighted she 
was with Germany, with Potsdam and the Crown Prince, 



420 'GRANT'S TOUR 

and more especially the Crown Princess, wliose motherly, 
womanly ways had won quite a place in her womanly, 
motherly heart. They had had pleasant talks about chil- 
dren, and households, and wedding anniversaries, and do- 
mestic manners in Germany, and had, no doubt, exchanged 
a world of that sweet and sacred information which ladies 
like to bestow on one another in the confidence of friendly 
conversation. Moreover, she was pleased to see Prince 
Bismarck, and expressed that pleasure, and there was a 
half-hour of the pleasantest talk, not about politics or wars 
or statesmanship, but on very human themes. 

The gentler side of the Prince came into play, and one 
who was present formed the oj)inion that there was a very 
sunny side to the man of blood and iron. As two o'clock 
drew near the Prince arose, and said, " I must go to my 
Congress, for, you see, although the business does not con- 
cern us greatly, it is business that must be attended to." 
The General escorted the Prince, and as he descended the 
crowd had become dense, for Bismarck rarely ajDpears in 
public now, and all Berlin honors him as foremost among 
German men. ■ . 

The dinner given by Bismarck to General Grant was a 
splendid affair. The invitation card was in German, not 
French — a large, plain card, as follows : 



^uetfi t)pn 


S^t!§tttat<f 


fiec^rt §t(^ ©cneral U. ©. 


@ront 


ivivx fitter tivx 


SJJontog, ijcn 1. ^uU, urn 


6 \\\x, 


gonj ergcBcnft 


etn^ulotjen. 






U. %. hi. g. 







The menu was in French, and as I have one before me 



AROUND THE WORLD. " 421 

whicli belonged to a guest whose fancy is the collection of 
menus, I will copy it : 



MENU. 

Lundi, le ler juillet. , 

Potage Mulligatawny. 

Pates a la financiere. 

Turbot d'Ostende a I'Anglaise. 

Quartier de boeuf 4 la Holsteinaise. 

Canetons aux olives. 

E.is de veau a la Milanaise. 

Punch remain. 

Poulardes de Bruxelles. 

Salade. Compotes. 

Fonds d'artichauts a la Hollandaise. 

Pain de fraises a la Chantilly. 

Glaces. 

Desert. 



The General, with his military habits of promptness, 
entered the j)alace at six precisely, accompanied by his 
wife, Mr. Bayard Taylor, the Minister, and Mrs. Taylor., 
and H. Sidney Everett, the Secretary of Legation. The 
Prince and Princess Bismarck and the Countess Marie 
Grafin Von Bismarck, accompanied by the Prince's two 
sons, met the General at the door of the salon, and pre- 
sented him to the various guests. There was a hearty 
greeting for the Minister and his party, and the Princess 
and Mrs. Grant were soon on the waves of aii animated 
conversation. The company was about thirty, and a few 
moments after the General's arrival, dinner was announced. 
The Prince led the way, escorting Mrs. Grant, who sat on 
his right, with Mrs. Taylor on his left, the General and the 
Princess vis-a-vis, with Mr. Von Schlozer, the German 
Minister at Washington, between. The remainder of the 



422 GRANT'S TOUR 

comjoany were members of the Cabinet and bigb persons 
in Berlin. The dinner you can judge of for yourself, and 
about half-past seven or later it was over, and the company 
adjourned to another room. 

In order to reach this apartment, the company passed 
through the room devoted to the Congress. It seemed like 
coming into some awful presence to be in the very chamber 
where the ruling minds of Europe, the masters of legions, 
the men who govern the world, daily meet to determine the 
destiny of millions — to determine peace or war. 

We came to an antechamber. The General and Bis- 
marck sat on a small sofa near the window, looking out 
upon the glorious swaying trees in the park. The ladies 
clustered into another group around the Princess, who, by 
the way, has one of the best and kindest faces I have ever 
seen. The remainder of the party broke into groups, wan- 
dering about the balcony to talk about the weather, the trees, 
the rain, the Congress, the Kaiser, and the other themes 
that seem to float about in every Berlin conversation. 

The General was made comfortable by his cigar, but 
the Prince would not smoke a cigar. His doctors, who had 
been bothering him about many things, had even under- 
taken to interfere with his tobacco, and all they would al- 
low him was a pipe. Just such a pipe as the American 
mind associates with a Hollander or German — a pipe 
with a black heavy bowl, a smoking machine about two feet 
long, which the Prince nursed beneath his knees, with his 
head bent forward in the full tide of an animated conver- 
sation. 

If I had any skill in drawing, I should like to sketch 
the scene between Grant and Bismarck. The Chancellor 
had lying stretched before him one faithful friend, a black 
Danish dog of the hound species. This dog has made a 
place for himself in the affections of Berlin. He has full 



AROUND THE WORLD. 423 

run of tlie i:)alace, and took as mucli pains as the Prince 
to make himself agreeable to his guests. He and the 
Prince are inseparable comjoanions, and there is a story 
that when Prince Gortschakoff came one day to see Bis- 
marck, the dog made an anti-Russian demonstration against 
the Russian's legs. All Berlin laughed over the story, 
which is too good to be denied. But on this occasion the 
Danish hound was in the most gracious mood, and while 
the General and the Prince were in conversation — the 
General tugging his cigar, which he is sure to allow to go 
out if the theme becomes an interesting one, and the 
Prince patting his pipe as if he loved it — the dog lay 
at their feet in placid acquiescence, with one eye now and 
then wandering over the guests to see that order was re- 
spected. The scene between the soldier and the states- 
man was worthy of remembrance. 

The General and the Prince talked mainly upon the 
resources of the two countries ; and this is a theme upon 
which the General never tires, and which, so far as Amer- 
ica is concerned, he knows as well as any man in the world. 
The contrast between the two faces was a study ; for I take 
it no two faces, of this generation, at least, have been more 
widely drawn. In expression Bismarck has what might 
be called an intense face, a moving, restless eye, that might 
flame in an instant. His conversation is irregular, rapid, 
audacious, with gleams of humor, saying the oddest and 
frankest things, and enjoying anything that amuses him so 
much that frequently he will not, cannot, finish the sen- 
tence for laughing. Grant, whose enjoyment of humor is 
keen, never passes beyond a smile. In conversation he 
talks his theme directly out with care, avoiding no detail, 
correcting himself if he slips in a detail, exceedingly accu- 
rate in statement, and who always talks well, because he 
never talks about what he does not know. You note, in 



424 GRANT'S TOUR, 

comparing tlie two faces, liow much, more yoiitli there is in 
that of Grant than of Bismarck. Grant's face was tired 
enough a year ago, when he came here fresh from that 
witches' dame of an Electoral Commission ; it had that 
weary look which you see in Bismarck's, but it has gone, 
and of the two men you would certainly deem Grant the 
junior by twenty years. 

Mr. Taylor, the American Minister, was evidently im- 
pressed with the historical value of the meeting of Grant 
and Bismarck. He remembered a German custom — that 
you can never cement a friendship without a glass of old- 
fashioned schnapps. There was a bottle of a famous 
schnapps cordial among other bottles. I am afraid to say 
how old it was, and the Minister said, " General, no patri- 
otic German will believe that there can ever be lasting 
friendship between Germany and the United States, unless 
yourself and the Prince pledge eternal amity between all 
Germans and Americans over a glass of this schnapps." 
The Prince laughed, and thanked the Minister for the sug- 
gestion. The schnapps was poured out, the General and 
Prince touched glasses, the vows were exchanged in hearty 
fashion, and the Prince, rising, led Mrs. Grant through the 
hall. 

As the party passed into the room .where the Congress 
meets, the Prince explained the j^ositimi of the members, 
and made some comments on the manner of doing business. 
" We do not get on rapidly, for one reason," he said, " be- 
cause nearly every member, when he speaks, does it in so 
low a voice that he has to say it all over again." At the 
head of the stairs the party separated, the Prince kissing 
the hand of Mrs. Grant in knightly German fashion. 



CHAPTER XXIL 

EN EOUTE FOE, COPENHAGEN FOIJETH OF JULY AT HAM- 

BUEG GENERAL GRANT's ORATION THE BLACK FOR- 
EST COPENHAGEN REACHED AT GOTHENBURG, SWE- 
DEN CHRISTIANIA WELCOME BY THE KING ^ARRI- 
VAL AT STOCKHOLM ST. PETERSBURG AN INTER- 
VIEW WITH THE CZAR GRAND DINNER AND REVIEW 

" ON TO MOSCOW WARSAW VIENNA DINING WITH 

THE EMPEROR RETURN TO PARIS OFF FOR SPAIN, 

Leaving Berlin, General Grant and his party set out for 
Copenhagen by the way of Hamburg. The latter place 
was reached on July 2d. A correspondent writing from 
this place says: There were strong temptations to re- 
main in Berlin, especially as Mr. Taylor seemed to make 
each hour of the stay more and more pleasant. But 
rumors were in the air of an unusual Fourth of July cele- 
bration, in which all the Americans were to take part, and 
the eagle was to have a glorious time screaming. I am 
afraid these rumors, and the apprehension on the General's 
part that he Avould be called upon to do his part in the 
glorification of our venerable bird, alarmed him, and he 
fled, to the disappointment of the orators, who were in 
severe training to entertain their guest. Hamburg was 
reached in due season, and the General dined quietly with 
the Consul, Mr. J. M. Wilson. There was the usual even- 
ing tramp about the city, and next morning a deputation 
of the Hamburg Senate called and welcomed the General. 
You know Hamburg, as one of the members of the old 
Haiiseatic Confederation, is a free city, and governed by a 
Senate and a Burgomaster. Although a part of the mod- 



426 GRANT'S TOUR 

ern machine of tlie German Empire, it retains its munic- 
ipal privileges, being, to all intents and purposes, a repub- 
lic, as it has been for a thousand years. Hamburg is a 
very beautiful city, in some respects one of the most beau- 



A MOUNTAIN- PASS IN GERMANY. 

tiful and best governed in Europe. There did not seem to 
be a stone out of place or a tree untrimmed. There was a 
quaint blending of the mediaeval with the modern, which 
you find nowhere else in so marked a degree. You pass 
from rows of streets with the old-fashioned red brick, the 
overhanging eaves, and comfortable, clumsy gables which 
you see in the pictures of Teniers, at once into rows of 
streets that remind you of Chicago. There was a large 
fire some time since which scooped out an important frag- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 427 

ment of the city, and it is in this fragment that you find 
the resemblance to Chicago. The General admired Ham- 
burg, and was especially pleased with its order and perfec- 
tion. Nothing interfered with the trip but the rain. If, 
however, you would enjoy God's gifts on this north-western 
coast of Europe, you must take them with rain. 

Hamburg gave itself up to the entertainment of the 
General with hearty good-will. On the morning after his 
arrival, he was taken by the Senators on board a small 
steamer, and made a tour of the docks and basins, and a 
small run into the Elbe. The ships had their bunting up 
in the friendliest manner, some English and American 
ships showing all their flags. The trip was pleasant, not- 
withstanding the rain, which came and went like the tem- 
per of a capricious woman. In the evening there was a 
dinner given hj the Senate, at the Zoological Gardens, the 
Burgomaster, Dr. Kirchenssauer, in the chair. Among 
the Senators present were Senators Oswald, Stamer, Mo- 
ring, and Hertze. The Burgomaster proposed the Gener- 
al's health in the kindest terms, speaking of the honor 
Hamburg received from his visit. The next day, being 
the Fourth of July, the General went down to the shoot- 
ing-box of James R. McDonald, the Vice-Consul, and 
spent the afternoon walking about the woods and talking 
with American friends. Then came a dinner at a country 
hotel near by, about thirty Americans, ladies and gentle- 
men, present, and the Consul presiding. Mr. Wilson pro- 
posed the General's health as " the man who had saved 
the country." This toast was drank with cheers. The 
General made a speech in answer, to the following effect : 

"Mr. Consul and Friends. — I am mucli obliged to you for 
the kind manner in which you drink my health. I share with 
3^ou in all the pleasure and gratitude which Americans so far 
from home should feel on this anniversary. But I must dissent 



428 GRANT'S TOUR 

from one remark of our Consul, to the effect that I saved the 
country during the recent war. If our country could be saved 
or ruined by the efforts of any one man, we shoul(^ not have a 
country, and we should not be now celebrating our Fourth of 
July. There are many men who would have done far better than I 
did under the circumstances in which I found myself during the 
war. If I had never held command; if I had fallen; if all our 
generals had fallen, there were ten thousand behind us who would 
have done our work just as well, who would have followed the 
contest to the end, and never surrendered the Union. Therefore, 
it is a mistake, and a reflection upon the people, to attribute to 
me, or to any number of us who held high commands, the salva- 
tion of the Union. We did our work as well as we could, and 
so did hundreds of thousands of others. We deserve no credit 
for it, for we should have been unworthy of our country and of 
the American name if we had not made every sacrifice to save 
the Union. What saved the Union was the coming forward of 
the young men of the nation. They came from their homes 
and fields, as they did in the time of the Revolution, giving 
everything to the country. To their devotion we owe the salva- 
tion of the Union. The humblest soldier who carried a musket 
is entitled to as much credit for the results of the war as "those 
who were in command. So long as our young men are animated 
by this spirit there will be no fear for the Union." 

This was the essential speech at the dinner, which I 
have reported from memory as faithfully as possible. 
Among those present — for the company was almost en- 
tirely American — were J. M. AVilson, the Consul; J. E.. 
MacDonald, the Yice-Consul; Mr. Glick, Mr. and Mrs. 
Danna, Mr. and Mrs. Warburg, Mr. and Mrs. Slattery, 
Mr. and Mrs. Politz, Miss Politz, Miss Gibson, and Miss 
Wolff. There was some dancing in a quiet way, and as 
we rode to the railway-station there were fireworks in the 
woods at various points. The next day the General 
lunched at the house of Baron von Ohlendorf, one of the 
merchant princes. The house of the Baron is a palace. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 429 

and tlie entertainment was regal. The company embraced 
the Prussian Minister to Hamburg, the commander of the 
Prussian garrison, Senators Godefroy, Moring, and others. 
The company was mainly composed of merchant princes. 
The Consul told me how many millions there were around 
the table, but I have forgotten, and will not dare to guess. 
Hamburg, however, has reason to be proud of these mas- 
ters of her j)rosperity. The General was carried off to 
the races ; he went so reluctantly that he had almost to be 
carried. But the Hamburgers were quite bent on his see- 
ing their track, and they had been so kind to him that he 
could not refuse. It rained, however, and, after seeing 
one spin around the turf, the General returned to his hotel. 
Among other incidents of the visit was the ajDpearance of 
a Prussian military band in front of the General's hotel 
window, at eight o'clock on the morning of the Fourth, 
and a serenade. I send you the programme, so that if 
any of your readers come to Hamburg they may know 
what to expect in the way of music: 

1. " Hail Columbia." 

2. Overture, 2. d. op. "Die Stlimme von Portici," von Auber. 

3. Clior der Biester a. d. op. " Die Zauberfiote," von Mozart. 

4. Entre act und Brautchor a. d. oper, "Lohengrin," 

von Wagner. 

As they passed along, the Black Forest was seen in the 
distance. The Black Forest covers an area of about twelve 
hundred square miles, being at the base of a triangle some 
forty miles broad. Although boasting many snow-clad 
peaks, it is not in its mountains, but rather in its valleys, 
that the grand charm of the district must be sought. In 
"their romantic seclusion, in their wild and lonely grandeur, 
in their pastoral richness, the trout-stream watered valleys 
of the Black' Forest present as beautiful and varied gems 
of nature as the world, or at least Europe, can offer." 



432 GRANT'S TOUR 

A few days' stay in Copenhagen, and lie embarked for 
Sweden and Norway. His first touching-place was Goth- 
enburg, Sweden, and here, after a short trip across the Cat- 
tegat, he made his first acquaintance with the fiords of the 
old Norse peninsula. When he landed he was met by a 
crowd of over five thousand people, who cheered loudly 
for him of whom they had heard so much. The Swedes, 
who have emigrated in such large numbers to the United 
States, have spread his fame among their countrymen at 
home. The ships in the harbor were all decorated in his 
honor. He passed the day in Gothenburg, and then con- 
tinued his journey to Christiania. All the villages along 
the route were decorated, and his coming was made the 
occasion of a gala-day. 

He landed at Christiania on the 13th, and was received 
with great ceremony. Ten thousand people flocked to greet 
him. King Oscar II. came to Christiania from Stockholm 
to meet the General, and gave him a hearty welcome. The 
General set out sight-seeing, and was conducted to the old 
castle of Aggershuus, with its citadel and church, on the 
brow of a point jutting out into the fiord, over whose wind- 
ing shore-line and smooth waters, broken by wooded islands, 
it gives a fine view. 

He accompanied the King to Stockholm, where he was 
received with enthusiastic orations. Here he was tendered 
with a grand dinner at the Embassy, and in the evening 
was serenaded. Shortly after he started by way of the 
Baltic for St. Petersburg. A large crowd assembled and 
cheered him as he embarked. 

He reached St. Petersburg on the morning of July 
30th. On arriving in the Russian capital he was met 
by Minister Stoughton, whose wonderful coronal of snowy 
locks never shone more magnificently over his rosy cheeks. 

The Emperor's aide-de-camp, Prince Gortschakoff, and 



AROUND THE WORLD. 433 

other liigh officials of the Imperial Court, called immedi- 
ately, welcoming the ex-President in the name of the Czar. 
On the following day General Grant had an audience with 
the Emperor Alexander, which was of a pleasant nature. 
The imperial yacht conveyed the General to Peterhof, the 
Versailles of St. Petersburg. It is fifteen miles from the 





\'''^JixMB;.~ 









n't "t ' -J"' 



A MOUNTAIN-PASS IN NORWAY. 

capital, but it has one advantage over the old French royal 
extra-mural residence in that the imperial palace there has 
almost unrivalled views over Cronstadt and the Gulf of 
Finland, and of the capital itself. The fountains were 
played in honor of the visit. Subsequently, General Grant 
visited the great Kussian man-of-war Peter the Great. 
The band played American airs and a royal salute of 
twenty-one guns was fired. The imperial yacht then 
steamed slowly among the Russian fleet lying off Cron- 
stadt, the ships running out American colors and the 
sailors cheering. 

During his visit to St. Petersburg, General Grant had 
an interview with the Czar. The Emperor manifested 



436 GRANT'S TOUR 

great cordiality. The General was presented by Prince 
Gortschakoff. His Majesty talked of his health and the 
General's travels. He seemed greatly interested in our 
national wards, the Indians, and made several inquiries as 
to their mode of warfare. At the close of the interview the 
Emperor accompanied General Grant to the door, saying : 

" Since the foundation of yonr government, the relations 
between Eussia and America have been of the friendliest char- 
acter, and as long as I live nothing shall be spared to continue 
that friendship." 

The General answered that, although the two govern- 
ments were directly opposite in character, the great major- 
ity of the American people were in symj^athy with Kussia, 
and would, he hoped, so continue. 

At the station General Grant met the Grand Duke 
Alexis, who was very cordial, recalling with pleasure his 
visits to America. A visit was also made to the great 
Chancellor, Prince Gortschakoff, with whom the General 
spent some hours smoking and discussing American and 
European affairs. 

The Czarowitz also received General Grant at special 
audience. The French Ambassador gave a dinner to the 
General, and there was a special review of the fire-brigade 
in his honor. The attentions of the Emperor and the 
authorities were so marked, that he prolonged his stay 
several days. 

On the 8th, he left for Moscow, and reached the an- 
cient capital on the 9th. He dined with Prince Dogoroff 
on the 10th. A visit was paid to the Cathedral of St. 
Basil, which is said to be the nicest " building the ingenuity 
of man could devote to the service of his Maker. There 
are no less than twenty towers and domes, all of different 
shapes and sizes, and painted in every possible color; 
some are covered with a network of green over a surface 



«<*7» 






iiiiiiiiriii 



ft i,iF 




AROUND THE WORLD. 437 

of yellow, another dome is a bright red with broad white 
stripes, and a third is gilded ! Some historians affirm that 
it was built to commemorate the capture of Kazan ; others, 
that it was a whim of Ivan the Terrible, to try how many 
distinct chapels could be erected under one roof, on a given 
extent of ground, in such a manner that Divine service 
could be performed in all simultaneously without any in- 













CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL, MOSCOW. 



terference one with another. It is also said that the Czar 
was so delighted with the architect, an Italian, who had 
thus admirably gratified his wishes, that when the edifice 
was finished he sent for him, j^ronounced a warm j)ane- 
gyric on his work, and then had his eyes put out, in order 
that he might never build such another ! A strange 
caprice of cruelty, if true — punishing the man, not for 
failing, but succeeding, in gratifying his employer. 



440 



GRANT'S TOUR 



" The entire structure is far from forming a whole, for 
no main building is discoverable in this architectural maze ; 
in every one of the towers or domes lurks a separate 
church, in every excrescence a chapel ; or they may be 
likened to chimneys expanded to temples. One tower 
stands forth prominently amid the confusion, yet it is not 
in the centre, for there is, in fact, neither centre nor side, 
neither beginning nor end; it is all here and there. 
Strictly speaking, this tower is no tower at all, but a church, 
and the chief one in the knot of churches, the ' Church of 
the Protection of Holy Mary.' This tower is one hundred 
and fifty feet in height." 




GENERAL VIEW OF THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. 

Another important place beheld by the visitors was the 
Kremlin. It is said that while in the process of building, 
the builders sought the shelter of one of its gates, and thus 
sheltered, the Tartars passed them by. " Even the presence 
of the 'temple-plundering Gauls,' according to the Eus- 
sians, only served to increase the renown of this gate. 
They thought the frame of the picture was of gold, and 




EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT, ADMIRALTY SQUARE, ST. PETERSBURG. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 441 

endeavored to remove it. But every ladder they planted 
broke in the middle ! This enraged the French, who then 
brought a cannon to batter down door and picture together ; 
but, do what they would, the dry powder was possessed by 
the devil of water, who was too much for the devil of fire, 
and would not explode ! At last they made a great fire 
with coals over the touch-hole : the powder was now sub- 
dued, but it exploded the wrong way, blowing the cannon 
into a thousand pieces, and some of the French artillery- 
men into the bargain, while gate and picture remained un- 
harmed ! The spoilers, now overmastered by dread, with- 
drew, acknowledging the miraculous power. Such is the 
story told by the taper-seller at the gate. The origin of 
the custom of uncapping at the ' Holy Gate ' is unknown ; 
several traditions are extant, yet the authenticity of any 
fact is lost in the darkness of ages; but the feelings of 
devotion are still fresh and powerful, and it is a question 
how weighty a bribe would be sufficient to induce a [Rus- 
sian to pass this archway, by either day or night, without 
uncovering his head. The Emperor himself bares his 
imperial brow as he approaches the Spaskoi ; the officer 
and soldier in all the pomp and circumstance of war do the 
same ; and thus tradition says it has been since the wooden 
walls of the first Kremlin were raised. The greatest care 
is taken not to allow dogs to enter by the Saviour's gate — 
a proof that in a religious point of view the Kussians look 
upon this animal as unclean." 

General Grant reached Warsaw on the 13th. After a 
brief stay here, he passed on to Vienna, where he arrived 
on Sunday, August 18th. At the railroad station he was 
met by Minister Kasson, the secretaries and members of 
the American Legation, and a large number of the Amer- 
ican residents. He was loudly cheered as he stepped out 
of the railway-carriage. 



442 ■ GRANT'S TOUR 

On tlie 19th, the General was visited at the Legation 
of the United States by Count Andrassy, the First Minister 
of the Council, and several colleagues. In the evening, he 
dined with the Countess and Mrs. Grant at Post's. On 
the 20th, he had an audience of His Imperial Majesty 
Francis Joseph at the lovely palace of Schoenbrunn, 
spending the remainder of the day driving about the im- 
perial grounds and forests, and visiting points of interest 
in that romantic and historic neighborhood. 

On the 21st, General and Mrs. Grant were entertained 
by the imperial family, and dined with the Emperor in 
the evening. During the morning, Baron Steinberg accom- 
panied the Emperor's American guests to the Arsenal. 

On the 22d, Minister Kasson gave a diplomatic dinner 
in honor of our ex-President, at which nearly all the foreign 
Ambassadors were present. The members of the Austro- 
Hungarian Cabinet attended the recejDtion in the evening, 
and added to the attractiveness and brilliancy of the occa- 
sion. The General expressed himself greatly pleased with 
Vienna ; thinks it a charming city. He was gratified also 
at the marked attentions of the Emperor's household, and 
the earnest endeavor shown to honor him as a citizen of 
the United States. 

On the following Monday he left for Steirmart. After 
a short stop here, and a ramble through other Austrian 
cities and towns, he returned to Paris on the 25th of Sep- 
tember. He was met at the station by Minister Noyes, 
ex-Governor Fairchild, ex-Governor McCormick, and 
other American officials.. The General was in excellent 
health and spirits, and had experienced so little fatigue 
during his journey that, after dining en famille, he strolled 
along the boulevards for more than two hours. 

Among the many fetes given in honor of General Grant's 
return to Paris, none is more important than the dine 



GRANT'S TOUR. ' 443 

given by Mr. Edward F. Noyes, the United States Minister, 
at the Legation. Among the invited guests were the fol- 
lowing distinguished Americans : — General and Mrs. Grant, 
John Welsh, Minister to England ; John A. Kasson, Min- 
ister to Austria; J. Meredith Read, Charge d' Affaires to 
Greece ; General Hazen, United States Army ; General 
Lucius Fairchild, Consul-General at Paris ; ex-Governor 
McCormick, Commissioner-General to the Paris Exposition ; 
ex-Governor Smith, of New Hampshire, and Miss Waite, 
daughter of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

On the 10th of October, General Grant left Paris for 
Spain. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A MESSAGE FROM THE KING OF SPAIN GLIMPSES OF 

SPANISH LIFE CASTELAR's GREETING AMONG THE 

PYRENEES ARRIVAL AT VITTORIA MEETING THE 

KING CONVERSATION WITH GENERAL GRANT AT 

MADRID WELCOME BY MR. LOWELL RECOLLECTIONS 

OF MADRID NEW LIFE IN THE CAPITAL LOTTERIES 

IN SPAIN HOW THEY ARE MANAGED WHAT BE- 
COMES OF THE SPANIARDS' MONEY EXPENSES OF 

STATE THE REAL POSITION OF THE KING. 

It was the intention of General Grant, when he left 
Paris, to make a short visit to the Pyrenees, and especially 
Pan. But when he came to Bordeaux he was met by a 
message from the King of Spain, who was at the time at 
Vittoria, directing the manoeuvres of his troops, and who 
especially requested that the General would honor him with 
a visit. If there is one thing the General dislikes it is re- 
viewing troops ; but the message from the King was so 
cordial that it could hardly be declined. Accordingly Pan 
was postponed, and the General went on as far as Biarritz, 
meaning to rest over night and cross the frontier next day. 
Resuming their journey, the little town of Irun, which is 
just over the frontier, afforded the first glimpse of Spanish 
life and character. Its neat railway-station was drajDed 
with flags and bunting, and on the platform was a group 
of officers of the Royal Guard, standing apart from those 
privileged citizens who had been admitted within the bar- 
riers. Beyond, clearly seen through the gates and station 
windows, struggling for a view of the distinguished visitor, 
were the villagers and the country people, who, denied 



AROUND THE WORLD. 445 

admission to the yard, were none the less active in their 
demonstrations of curiosity. 

As the train drew up at the platform, General Grant 
alighted from his carriage. The ranking officer of the 
delegation, a general on the staff of Alfonso XII., advanced 
and, saluting the visitor, welcomed him, in the King's 
name, to the Iberian peninsula. He stated that he was 
directed by His Majesty to j^lace at the General's disposal 
the special railway-carriage of the King, and to beg an 
acceptance of the same. General Grant expressed his 
thanks in a few words and accepted the proffered courtesy. 
The train moved out of the little village towards the war- 
begrimed city of San Sebastian — the last stronghold of the 
Carlists. 

At San Sebastian General Grant was received by Emilio 
Castelar, ex-President of the Spanish Kepublic. To the 
well-known statesman and journalist, General Grant was 
exceedingly cordial. He concluded his remarks by say- 
ing : " Believe me, sir, the name of Castelar is especially 
honored in America." Here, as at Irun, were gathered 
many people to see General Grant, and he was presented 
to the town officials and the distinguished citizens. The 
contracted harbor reflected the green of the tree-covered 
hills that encircle it so nearly, and beyond the cone-like 
isle at its mouth was the sheen of the noonday sun on the 
Bay of Biscay. 

Leaving this place the road leads southward towards 
Tolosa and Vergara. At both of these stations a squad of 
soldiers was stationed. The usual military guard had been 
doubled in honor of the American General. After wind- 
ing about the hills beyond the station of Tolosa the train 
suddenly leaves the defiles behind and smoothly skirts the 
side of a great hill, giving the occupants of the carriages a 
grand view to the southward. Near at hand are seen the 



446 GRANT'S TOUR 

peaks of the Pyrenees — only the extreme western spur 
of the range, to be sure, but very formidable-looking bar- 
riers to railway engineering. Altogether the journey is a 
charming, Swiss-like ride, creeping, as the traveller does, 
through what were once dangerous mountain paths, and 
where, even yet, the railway-coaches are alternately in the 
wildest forests of scraggy pine and the long-leaved chestnut. 
Mr. Young thus describes their arrival at Vittoria: — 
A slight rain is falling, but all Vittoria is in a glow. The 
open space in front of our hotel is filled with booths and 
dealers in grains and other merchandise. The traders sit 
over their heaps of beans, peppers, melons, and potatoes. 
They are mainly women, who wear a quaint Basque cos- 
tume; the men in red and blue bonnets, with blue blouses, 
mostly faded, and red sashes swathed about the waist. 
These cavaliers spend most of their time smoking cigar- 
ettes, watching their wives at work. Now and then a 
swarthy citizen in a Spanish cloak saunters by, having 
been to mass or to coffee, and eager to breathe the morning 
air. A farmer drives over the primitive stony street. His 
team is a box resting on two clumsy wooden wheels. When 
you remember that it has taken two thousand years of 
Basque civilization — the most ancient, perhaps, in Europe 
— to produce this wheel, you may guess how far the people 
have advanced. The team is drawn by two oxen, with 
their horns locked together, and their heads covered by a 
fleece. In the cart is a pig, ready for the last and highest 
office a pig can pay to humanity. Other carts come laden 
with hay drawn by the slow, shambling oxen, all seeking 
a market. You hear drums and trumpets and army calls. 
The town is a camp, and ladies are thronging the lattice 
windows, and soldiers come swarming out of the narrow 
streets into the market-place. This is the season of the 
manoeuvres. A crowd of citizens stand in the street, about l 



AROUND THE WORLD. 447 

a liundrecl paces from our hotel, quiet, expectant, staring 
into an open gateway. This gateway leads into a long, 
irregular, low range of buildings of yellowish stone and 
red tiles. Over the gate clings the flag of Spain, its damp 
folds clustering the pole. A black streamer blends with 
the yellow and crimson folds, mourning the death of the 




A GROUP OF SPANISH LADIES. 

Queen. Natty young officers trip about, their breasts 
blazoned with decorations, telling of victories in Carlist 
and Cuban wars, all wearing mourning on their arms for 
the poor young Mercedes. The sentinels present arms, a 
group of elderly officers come streaming out of the gate- 
way. At their head is a stripling with a slight moustache, 
and thin, dark side whiskers. In this group are the first 
generals in Spain — Concha, Quesada — captain-generals, 
noblemen, helmeted, sjDurred, braided with gold lace,, old 
men with gray hairs. The stripling they follow^ dressed 



448 GRANT'S TOUR 

in captain-general's uniform, and toucliing liis cap to the 
crowd as it uncovers, is Alfonso XII., King of Spain. 

When General Grant readied Vittoria, there were all 
the authorities out to see him, and he was informed that in 
the morning the King would meet him. Ten o'clock was 
the hour, and the place was a small city hall or palace, 
where the King resides when he comes into his capital. 
At ten the General called, and was escorted into an ante- 
room, where were several aids and generals in attendance. 
He passed into a small room, and was greeted by the King. 
The room was a library, with books, and a writing-table 
covered with papers, as though His Majesty had been hard 
at work. His Majesty is a young man, twenty past, with 
a frank, open face, side whiskers and moustache like down. 
He was in the undress uniform of a captain-general, and 
had a buoyant, boyish way about him which made one 
sorrow to think that on these young shoulders should rest 
the burdens of sovereignty. How much he would have 
given to have gone into the green fields for a romp and a 
ramble — those green fields that look so winsome from the 
window. It was only yesterday that he was among his 
toys and velocipedes, and here he is a real king, with a 
uniform showing that he ranks with the great generals of 
the world, heavily braided with bullion. Alfonso speaks 
French as though it was his own tongue, German and 
Spanish fluently, but not so well, and English with good 
accent, but a limited vocabulary. When the General 
entered, the King gave him a seat, and they entered into 
conversation. There was a little fencing as to whether the 
conversation should be in English or Spanish. The Gen- 
eral said he knew Spanish in Mexico, but thirty-five years 
had passed since it was familiar to him, and he would not 
venture upon it now. The King was anxious to speak 
Spanish, but English and French were the only tongues 
used. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 449 

The King said lie was honored by the visit of General 
Grant, and especially because the General had come to see 
him in Vittoria ; otherwise he would have missed the visit, 
which would have been a regret to him. He was very 
curious to see the General, as he had read all about him, 
his campaigns and his Presidency, and admired his genius 
and his character. To this the General answered that he 
would have been sorry to have visited Europe without see- 
ing Spain. The two countries — Spain and the United 
States — were so near each other in America that their 
interests were those of neighbors. The General then 
spoke of the sympathy which was felt throughout the 
United States for the Kino; in the loss of his wife. The 
King said he had learned this, had seen its evidence in 
many American newspaj)ers, and it touched him very 
nearly. He then spoke of the Queen. His marriage had 
been one of love, not of policy. He had been engaged to 
his wife almost from childhood — for five years, at least. 
He had made the marriage in spite of many difiiculties, 
and their union, although brief, was happy. No one knew 
what a help she had been in combatting the difficulties of 
the situation, for it was no pleasure to be an executive — 
no easy task. The General had seen something of it, and 
knew what it was. To this the General answered that he 
had had eight years of it, and they were the most difficult 
and burdensome of his life. The King continued to dwell 
on the burdens of his office. Spain was tranquil and pros- 
perous, and he believed she was entering upon a career of 
prosperity ; and from all parts of his kingdom came assur- 
ances of contentment and loyalty. There were no inter- 
necine wars like the Carlists' in the North or the Commu- 
nists' in the South, and Cuba was pacified. All this was a 
pleasure to him. But there were difficulties inseparable 
from the royal office. While his wife lived, together they 



450 GRANT'S TOUR 

met them, and now slie was gone. His only solace, lie 
continued, was activity, incessant labor. He described his 
way of living — rising early in the morning, visiting bar- 
racks, reviewing troops, and going from town to town. 

All this was said in the frankest manner — the young 
King leaning forward in his chair, pleased, apparently, at 
having some one to whom he could talk, some one who had 
been in the same path of perplexity, who could feel as he 
felt. The General entered into the spirit of the young 
man's responsibilities, and the talk ran upon what men 
gain and lose in exalted stations. There was such a con- 
trast between the two men — Alfonso, in his general's 
uniform, the President in j^lain black dress, fumbling an 
opera hat in his hand. In one face were all the joy and 
exj^ectancy of youth — of beaming, fruitful youth — just 
touched by the shadow of a great duty and a heart-searing 
sorrow. Behind him the memory of his love, his dear 
love, torn from his arms almost before he had crowned 
their lives with the nuptial sacrament — before him all ths 
burdens of the throne of Spain. In the other face w^ere 
the marks of battles won and hardships endured and tri- 
umphs achieved — and rest at last. One face was young 
and fair, the* skin as soft as satin, youth and effort stream- 
ing from the dark, bounding eyes. The other showed 
labor. There were lines on the brow, gray hairs mantling 
the forehead, the beard gray and brown, the stooping 
shoulders showing that Time's hand was bearing upon 
them. One was twenty years of age, the other fifty-six ; 
but in feeling, at least, it seemed that the younger of the 
two was the ex-President. Care and sorrow had stamped 
themselves on the young King's face. 

Leaving Vittoria, General Grant proceeded to Madrid. 
James Pussell Lowell, our Minister, met him at the station, 
when the General was welcomed on behalf of the King by 



AROUND THE WORLD. 451 

tlie civil authorities, and especially by Colonel Noeli, a 
Spanish officer of distinction, who was detailed to attend 
him. The King had not arrived, but was in the north 
visiting Espartero, and reviewing his conscripts. Mr. 
Lowell gave the General a dinner and a reception, where 
men of all parties came to pay their respects to the ex- 
President. It seemed like a truce in the heat of Spanish 
politics to see Canovas and Castelar in Mr. Lowell's saloons, 
in long and friendly converse ; but I presume there is a life 
behind the scenes in Spanish politics as in our own, and 
that patriots and national enemies may talk opera over 
cakes and ale. There was a dinner at the Presidency of 
the Council, the only State dinner given since the poor 
Queen died. There were arsenals to be inspected, and 
picture galleries, the royal palace, and the royal stables. 
There were long walks about Madrid, and long talks with 
Mr. Lowell, whom General Grant had never met before, 
but for whom he conceived a sincere attachment and 
esteem. There were calls from all manner of public men, 
especially from Captain-General Jovellar, with whom the 
General had satisfying talks about Cuba, and one from 
Castelar, whom the General was most anxious to see. Cas- 
telar had been so friendly to the North in our war, and 
he had been also a constitutional President of the Republic, 
and the General was anxious to do him honor. He con- 
templated a dinner to Castelar. But Spanish politics are 
full of torpedoes, and the General was in some sort a guest 
of the nation, and it was feared that the dinner might be 
construed into a republican demonstration — an interference 
in other people's affairs — and it was abandoned. 

What impressed those of the travellers who had pre- 
viously been in Madrid, were the changes that had taken 
place within the last few years. It seemed, says one of 
them, to have become transformed from a Sj^anish into a 



452 



GRANT'S TOUR 



French town. New stores liad sprung up on the Alcala, 
and new hotels advised you that they gave meat and enter- 
tamment in the French fashion. Street railways traverse 
the narrow highways, and it seemed a desecration, almost, 
to hear jangling car-bells in the drowsy old alleys along 
which I used to pad my way to the street of Isabel the 




■ PUBLIC SQUARE, ANCIENT MADRID. 

Catholic, to hear from Sickles or Adee what had happened 
to Spain during the night. For poor Spain was then in 
an interesting condition, and the strangest births were then 
coming to light. And when we had nothing else to do, 
we used to go out and join the people when they went to 
demonstrate before the public offices, generally before the 
palace of the Interior, on the Puerta del Sol, where there 
was room to shout and hustle and carry our banners, and 
where, moreover. Pi y Margall was in power. Pi, being a 
friend of the j^eople, was sure to give us a welcome, and 
tell us to be patient and we should have bread and work. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 453 

Sometimes we used to go down to the Cortes, and demon- 
strate in favor of more radical measures and more speed in 
making the Republic, and wait until Castelar and Salmeron 
and Garrido came out, that we might hail them as friends 
of liberty and saviours of Spain. Pi was arrested the other 
day as a revolutionist, and Garrido is in exile, and Castelar, 
almost alone among republicans, is tolerated in the Cortes 
because of his marvellous eloquence, and because, as Cano- 
vas said when he sent word to the government agents not 
to oppose his return, " A Spanish Cortes would be nothing 
without Emilio Castelar." And so in five years the world 
wags its curious course. 

In those days Madrid was a Spanish town, and it was 
pleasant to walk in the streets and see the quaint, pictu- 
resque life so new to Saxon eyes ; to see the varied costumes 
of the provinces, to hear the odd cries, to visit the cafes, 
with their curious drinks of almond and pomegranate and 
orange, temperate and tasteless, and see damsels and wrin- 
kled women gorging ices, and grave men smoking cigar- 
ettes. Pleasant was the Prado when the evening shadows 
came, and all Madrid was out to take the air and see the" 
wonderful beauty of the skies, which have a beauty of their 
own in this captivating Spain. Pleasant it was to stroll 
up and down the Prado and see the maidens, with veils 
and mantillas, grouped in couples, with demure, gazelle- 
like eyes that looked at you so shyly, and if they spoke at 
all it was with a glance or with the fan, which, in the hand 
of a Spanish lady, is an organ of speech. Pleasant it was 
to see the nurses, in Andalusian peasant costumes, their 
brown faces and ripe, bonny bosoms, which children were 
draining, ranged in chairs, and watching the swaying 
world in unconscious, innocent wonder. Pleasant were the 
dancing groups which you met in the public squares or the 
denser parts of the town, dancing their slow, measured 



454 GRANT'S TOUR 

step to tlie music of a guitar or tlie time of a Castanet. 
And the bull-figliters on Sunday afternoon ! Was any- 
thing more pleasant than to stroll up the Alcala and study 
the hurrying crowd, hurrying on to the arena to see the 
bulls, to be there in time for the procession ? Maidens, 
duchesses, beggars, statesmen, priests, workingmen, and 
soldiers, parents and their children, are hurrying to the 
ring. Pleasant were the evenings at Cafe Fornos, with old 
Dr. Mackeehan, the oldest American resident in Madrid, 
at the head of the table, and telling his recollections of a 
generation of Spanish life, especially his recollections of 
the dynasty of American Ministers under whom he had 
served, from Barringer to Gushing, and how he had seen 
Soule fight his duel, and how he hated a certain secretary 
of legation. I have never, by the way, seen an expatriated 
American who did not have some cherished hatred which 
he nourished and worshipped — as the Hindoos do idols of, 
evil import — and generally it was another American. But 
there was no kindlier or friendlier soul than the old Doc- 
tor, and nothing j)leased him more than to celebrate the 
Fourth of July. Pleasant were the dinners Adee. and I 
were wont to have with our mysterious friend, who lived in 
an upper story — our mysterious friend, whose business 
every one was seeking to know, and no one could discover 
— and who always roasted his partridges himself after we 
had arrived. Pleasant were the brisk w^alks with Forbes 
over the windy plains around Madrid, and the strolls with 
Austin in the narrow streets of the old town. Pleasant it 
was to hear the Minister throw his leg over his crutch 
and preach about Spain and the Republic, and. marvellous 
preaching it was, for he knew Spain well and believed in 
the Bepublic. But how changed ! Cold winds drive 
maidens and nurses from the Prado. The Fornos table, 
wdth the good Doctor at the head, has vanished in the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 455 

State Department, and Forbes is in Afghanistan and Aus- 
tin in India, and a new Minister reigns in the stead of the 
Seventy, and as I passed the old legation on Isabel the 
Catholic street, I was informed by public placard that if I 
wished to rent the building I had only to say the word 
and take possession. 

Even the bull-ring has gone — the clumsy, old bull-ring, 
with its narrow entrances and dingy boxes and strangest 
smells, and blocks upon blocks of imposing houses occupy 
its site. There is a new bull-ring a half mile further out 
— a spick-and-span affair of brick, which does not look 
like •a bull-ring, but a Moody and Sankey tabernacle of 
the Chicago order of architecture. New avenues stretch 
in all directions, paved with curbstones, and young trees ; 
and buildings, everywhere artisans at work — new build- 
ings in every part of the town. The aspect of the city has 
wholly changed. There is the Calle Mayor and the old 
Plaza. I always visit that antique enclosure, because it 
reminds me of the days when Spain was really governed 
by kings. Plaza Mayor was where the heretics were tried 
and sentenced to be burned — and there was the balcony 
where those sovereigns of sainted memory Charles II., 
Philip III., and other divinely-vouchsafed princes were 
wont to perch themselves and see the trials go on and hear 
monks denounce heresy, and applaud with tingling fingers 
as the poor wretches, in their costumes of degradation, 
were led to the stake. It was here, too, that Charles I. of 
England, also of blessed memory, came to witness a bull- 
fight — one of the most famous exhibitions ever given — 
the fighters being gentlemen of quality, and one of them a 
young woman, who attacked a bull singly and killed it 
with her dagger. This Plaza Mayor seemed to have out- 
lived any fear of change, and it was pleasant to wander 
under its arches and look at the trees and study Philip III. 



456 GRANT'S TOUR 

on horseback, and summon back the phantoms who once 
made it their holiday. But even the plaza is changed and 
has become a mere market, with shops, where you can buy 
cheap jewelry and clothes, and prominent are placards in 
eulogy of American machines and canned meats. All the 
color and repose of the old plaza have vanished. The 
sewing-machine has taken the place of the auto de fe, and, 
as an antiquity, Plaza Mayor has no more interest than 
the Fulton Market or Tweed's ancient Court-House oppo- 
site the City Hall. 

I had gone the other morning to pay my devotions to 
the Virgin, not our Lady of Atocha (the Virgin from An- 
tioch), nor any of the manifest virgins in brocade before 
whom candles burn in Madrid churches, but our Lady of 
Raphael, as you see her on the walls of the Madrid Gal- 
lery, in the picture called " La Perla." This gallery is 
one of the glories of modern civilization, and whenever my 
mind in the years of absence reverted to Spain I found 
that it rested on the Museum in the Prado. I have friends 
on those walls whom I could not miss seeing without feel- 
ing that I had transgressed the sacred rights of friendship 
— "La Perla," "The Meninas," "The Surrender of 
Breda" — all the works of the incomparable Velasquez. 
I am afraid I worship there more than in the churches, for 
there really are no churches in Madrid, no more than in 
New York or Boston. I had made my devotions, and was 
strolling home through the Calle San Geronimo, when an 
unusual bustle attracted my attention. Newsboys were 
shouting extra newspapers and loungers were running out 
of the cafes and wayfarers stoj^ped to read — to read with 
strained and breathless attention. I thought the King had 
been shot, or the Ministry had resigned, or the favorite 
bull-fighter had died, or that there was some other incident 
of a transcendent character. So I purchased an extra and 



. AROUND THE WORLD. 457 

stopped to read, and found it was only columns of figures, 
and that these figures recited the prizes in the lottery. 
The lottery had been drawn that morning, and all Madrid, 
all Spain, was palpitating over it. 

If I were asked to name the first evil in Spain, the first 
that should attract the. reformer's eyes, I would say the 
lottery. The government manages it. I asked a Span- 
ish friend whether the management was perfectly honest. 
" Yes," he answered, " it is the most honest thing in Spain." 
As I had no interest in the lottery, I took my jDaper home 
and studied it. I discovered that lotteries were frequently 
held in Spain. In this special drawing there were 1,894 
prizes, and the value of the money distributed was $166,440. 
There was one principal prize of |16,000, and three others, 
respectively, $10,000, $4,000, and $2,000. There were 
three of $1,000 each, two of $810 each, and 1,847 of $60 
each. The paper did not say how many tickets were sold, 
but there were numbers on my prize list running as high 
as 38,000. Each ticket is divided into ten parts, each part 
costing sixty cents, making the value of a complete ticket 
. If, therefore, 38,000 tickets were sold at $6 apiece, 
there would be a revenue to the government from this lot- 
tery alone, after paying all the prizes, of $61,500. I ob- 
served that the first prize, No. 959, had been drawn in 
Cadiz, and that of the other great prizes, one was drawn 
in Seville, two in Madrid, and one in Getafe, a little country 
town on the way to Andalusia. This, however, was only 
a small lottery ; the great one comes at Christmas. The 
first prize in this is $500,000, and the price of each ticket 
s $100. The government gives the great lottery once a 
year as a Christmas present to Spain. As you cannot buy 
one-tenth of a chance in this grand prize for less than $10, 
md as $10 is a good deal of money in Spain, many a 
Spaniard will have a dinnerless and supperless Christmas 



458 GRANT'S- TOUR 

in his daring venture for fortune. One hates to tliink of 
the moral effect of a venture like this upon the character 
of a people. Wherever you go — to the cafe, the church, 
or the railway-station — you are pursued by crijoples, chil- 
dren, women — all vending their lottery tickets. The night 
before the drawing the streets ring with their cries, as 
Broadway during the war was wont to ring with the cries 
of newsboys shouting tidings of a battle. There is, how- 
ever, an awakened sentiment on the subject of gambling 
in Spain. When I was here in the time of Amadous there 
were gambling shops over every cafe, and gambling Avas 
an established industry, which even revolutions could not 
disturb. The gambling houses have been closed ; I suppose 
the lottery would go also, except that the government feels 
on that subject as Napoleon did about his revenue from 
brandy, or England about her revenue from opium. It is 
a profitable vice. In the national budget I find that out 
of an estimated revenue of 657,000,000f., 55,000,000£ are 
expected from lotteries. 

Speaking of the many conspiracies against the Span- 
ish republic, the writer says: — Let us see what Spanish 
rulers do with Spanish money. Spain is poor. She only 
pays a fraction of the interest on her debt. She has had 
wars in Cuba, wars among the Carlists, cantonal insurrec- 
tions — all a serious drain upon the treasury. It was 
financial trouble that led to the French Revolution, and 
when the treasury is empty discontent is sure to follow. 
I have been studying the financial estimates, as printed in 
the official Gazette, and presented to the Cortes. Take 
first the royal house. Spain has a king who was born in 
1857. She pays him $1,400,000 a year, or, Sundays ex- 
cepted, nearly $4,500 a day. Alfonso costs every two 
weeks more than Mr. Hayes in a year. Spain has also 
the services of the Princess of Asturias, a young widow 



AROUND THE WORLD. 459 

lady, born in 1861. She lives with the King, presides 
over his household, and is, I hear, an estimable person, 
given to charity and visiting hospitals. Spain pays this 
pi'incess $100,000 a year, or twice as much as you annually 
paid General Grant when President. Spain also enjoys 
the services of Dona Maria del Pilar Besenguela. This 
maiden was born in 1861, and is the King's sister. She 
lives mostly in Paris, goes to church, and reads pious 
books. Spain pays her $30,000 a year, which no Congress 
would ever dream of giving to Chief- Justice Waite. Spain 
has two other princesses, Dona Maria de le Paz Juana and 
Eulalie Francisca de Asis. These maidens are respectively 
sixteen and fourteen. They live in Paris to comfort an 
exiled mother, and dress their dolls. I have no doubt 
they are model children, and will be one day the best of 
princesses. Spain I3ays them each $30,000 a year. I 
wonder what Congress would say if we proposed to pay 
General Sherman as much. The exiled mother, known 
in history as Isabella II., lives in Paris on the Pue Poi de 
Pome. Spain pays for her services $150,000 a year. She 
is so 230or that the other day she put her jewels up at auc- 
tion, and I do not know how many millions of francs they 
brought her. The Queen has a sister, wife of the Duke 
of Montpensier, mother of poor Mercedes. Her husband, 
the Duke, is one of the richest men in Europe, and so 
Spain pays his wife the beggarly salary of $50,000 a year. 
Queen Isabella has a husband, who does not live on the 
Eue Poi de Pome, but on the Champs Elysees. I used to 
I see him pottering about under the trees of the avenue, a 
dapper little man, that I was wont to fancy a teacher of 
dance-music until I learned that he was an illustrious 
prince and King Consort of Spain. Spain pays him 
$60,000 a year. Not long since the grandmother of the 
King, Queen Christina, who spent her last years in a 



460 GRANT'S TOUR 

23alace on tlie Champs Elysees, was gathered to her fathers, 
and now is at peace in the Escurial. While this estimable 
princess lived — and she lived to an advanced age — Spain 
valued her services at $50,000 a year. If you ask me 
what special services these princes and princesses have 
rendered to Spain, that out of her impoverished treasury, 
she should pay them annually $1,900,000, 1 am afraid I can 
give you no better answer than the barber in Beaumarchais' 
"Figaro," who, when he asks what the noble lord had done 
to enjoy so many blessings, could only respond, "Voiis 
vous etes donne la peine de naitre'" — (they have taken the 
trouble to be born.) 

In addition to this, you find charges for pensions and 
payments which even as rich a country as England quar- 
ters on her civil list. You find one item of $80,000 for 
repairing that gloomy monastery of the Escurial, that the 
ashes of the kings may have a roof over their tombs. 
Then we come to the Church. More than $8,500,000 an- 
nually are given to the Church. About one-half of this 
money is paid to clergymen direct. The sanctuary and 
house of St. Theresa, in Avila, requires $4,500, while, as 
an offering to St. Jago, the patron saint of Spain, $2,460 
is paid. What St. Jago does with this money is not appar- 
ent, but it was voted and paid. For repairing bishops' 
palaces, supporting institutions of priestly learning, and 
other clerical wants, large sums are given. Yet, in Spain, 
the Church is richer than in any other country in the 
world. Every church is a treasure-house of gold and sil- 
ver and gems, notwithstanding what the French carried 
away. There is a constant demand for money in all pri- 
vate ways — subscriptions, alms, collections, special lotter- 
ies, revenues from indulgences, bull-fights, masquerades — 
always money, money — in addition to the vast sum voted 
by the State. Justice in Spain, as far as I can make it 



AROUND THE WORLD. 461 

out, costs a little less tlian $2,000,000 a year; public in- 
struction about the same. The Church, notwithstanding 
its large jorivate revenues, demands and receives more than 
twice as much as both departments combined. 

Then the army ! Spain is a peaceful nation, so far as 
the outer world is concerned. She has had to fight none 
but Spaniards, and each of those wars may be attributed 
directly to some vice in her form of government. With 
fields to cultivate — fair and rich fields, none richer on this 
teeming globe — with mines to work, mines which would 
add incalculable wealth to her people — with resources sur- 
passing those of any nation in Europe, one would think 
that the wisest thing that Alfonso could say to his subjects 
would be, " Stay at home, plough, sow, reap, dig, search o,Qt 
the mines that were the glory of ancient Tarshish and the 
envy of Carthage and Kome ; make the earth give its fruits 
and the caverns of the earth their treasures ; cover those 
blooming Andalusian hills with the olive, the orange, the 
pomegranate, and the vine; bring the corn again to the 
desolate plains of Estramadura ; let Catalonia be another 
Lancashire ; cover these stripped hills with trees, and make 
, my Spain as God created it — a fair, blooming, rich, and 
I beautiful land." But, no — the King must have an army 
I and a navy ! If there were real war in Europe, calling 
for Spain to take part, how long could her army with- 
stand the armies of France or Germany ? How long 
\ could her navy exist under the guns of England ? But in 
1 j this age of blood and iron armies and navies are the fash- 
j I ion, and Spain follows at a full run. For her army she 
; pays in round numbers $23,976,000 per annum, and for 
her navy about $6,000,000 a year. And yet she cannot 
pay her debts, and the country complains of poverty, and 
jthe richest fields in Europe are abandoned to the woodcock 
and the rabbit, and she must nurse the pernicious system 



462 GRANT'S TOUR 

of lotteries, to tlie enervation and degradation of her 
j)eople. 

I am not writing tliis in any spirit of reproach to Spain. 
God forbid. There is much to admire in Sj)ain, and op- 
portunities for a glorious future, even more glorious than 
the past, which was, as we now see it, a false prosperity, 
flashing and feverish while it lasted. God forbid that an 
American should reproach any other people for their short- 
comings. Until the mote of slavery is well out of his own 
eye, let him not be too curious about the eyes of his neigh- 
bors. But in seeking out the causes of present discontent 
in Spain, the unsettled state of affairs — ministries living 
from hand to mouth — a king tolerated, not accepted, un- 
easiness here, there, and all over the land, we go first to 
the finances. As sovereigns go, there is no one more at- 
tractive or more promising than Alfonso XII. But he is 
only a boy, a nominal king ruling by the will of one man 
■ — Antonio Canovas del Castillo. Why should Spain pay 
him and his family nearly two millions of dollars a year ? 
Well, royalty is a sentiment, grateful to Spanish pride, and 
it ennobles a nation to have one supreme source of majesty 
and power, and to feel that he came from a long line of 
ancestors. But why not transfer this sentiment to some- 
thing less expensive? Why not make a king of gold or 
silver or bronze, and wind it up like a clock, and carry it 
around on holy days, as the priests do statues and candles 
on Easter and Corpus Christi ? People are devout enough 
to kneel to an imaged Virgin. Why should they not in 
time become loyal enough to uncap to an imaged king? 
Such an image rules over Spain and other countries. A 
king like Charles the Emj^eror or Philip II., one can 
comprehend. He was king, lord, master, his own cabinet 
and Cortes, and all the land was his ; likewise the treasure 
and the lives of those who tilled the land and amassed the 



AROUND THE WORLD, 463 

treasure. But those days have gone, and why should the 
kings not go with them ? You can never have in Spain 
any sovereign but one in name. Why for that name pay 
$10,000,000 a year ? A king of metal, even if silver with 
a gold crown on the head, would cost less money, would be 
as loyally accepted by the people, and have as much power 
in governing Spain as its present sovereign. 

Spain is rich in picturesque mendicants — richer even 
than Ireland, where the beggar is less fitted to the brush 
of the artist, though graceful enough in his dirt, squalor, 
and rags. A Spanish beggar whines, rolling out prayers 
and ejaculations, the majestic word Dios coming to the front 
in a superb way. More loathsome creatures than some of 
them it is scarcely possible to conceive ; while any deform- 
ity, any ulcer, any chastisement which it has pleased Dios 
to bestow upon them, is used as a talisman and a trade- 
mark, paraded and exhibited until one sickens, as the 
bleared, palsied, and reeking army of martyrs stand as if 
on parade. It is worthy of remark that a large number 
of Sj^anish mendicants are blind. It is alleged that the 
reflection of the sun from the plains of the white sand 
brings on loss of vision. These unfortunate beings crowd 
round every church door, at the corner of every street, and 
literally besiege people who ride in carriages. To miss a 
carriage along the road is to lose a meal — to starve — since 
it is to the charity of travellers that the beggars owe their 
ghastly existence — a charity which stands between them 
and death from hunger. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

A VISIT TO THE ESCURIAL A DEEAEY EOAD HISTORY OF 

THE PLACE IN THE EOYAL APARTMENTS THE LI- 
BRARY A GLOOMY PLACE THE COURT OF THE KINGS 

THE ESCURIAL CHURCH THE SANCTUARY OF RELICS 

THE TOMB OF THE KINGS THE GRANDEUR OF THE 

CHURCH MERCEDES, BRIDE AND QUEEN THE GRAND, 

GLOOMY HOME AND GRAVE OF PHILIP II. 

A visit to Spain without seeing the Escurial would cer- 
tainly be incomplete. Regarding it thus, General Grant 
resolved to pay it a visit. The road from Madrid to the 
Escurial is somewhat dreary and desolate. It is described 
as follows : — Rocks rise above rocks in broken, fissured 
masses over a barren, stony plain. Stones, mountains 
of stones, break and fall in the most fantastic, gloomy 
shapes. In all directions they rise and sweep and fall, and 
you seem to be tugging through a world of desolation — a 
world of silence and death. Rocks, granite rocks, ridge 
heaped on ridge, corrugated, flowing irregular, stern. Deep 
fissures show now and then a shapeless shrub, craving the 
dew and the sunshine, striving to justify its forlorn exist- 
ence. No life, no sign of life, no beast, or bird, or buzzing 
insect — only the rocks that tumble over the horizon — 
only the rocks and a cold wind that blows from the snow- 
wreathed hills. Suddenly there is a vast gray building, 
with a high dome and turrets — a prodigious building that 
frowns upon you, as it were, it is so cold and vast. 

There, m its vastness and grandness, its solitude and 
loneliness, stands the Escurial. It seems, he continues, 

464 




AROUND THE WORLD. 



465 



to leap out of the desolation and array itself against the 
range of cruel towering crags which hover over it — a child 
of the nature which surrounds it, an epitome of the wild, 
harsh, lonely land through which we have been tugging — 
a gigantic hill, severe, without beauty or majesty, with 
strength and purpose. 






THE MOUNTAINS THEOUGH WHICH THE ROAD TO THE ESCURIAL LIES. 

The Escurial was built by Philip II., of Spain, and is, 
indeed, one of the most striking and wonderful monuments 
of the world. It was originally intended for a convent 
and a palace, but more especially as a convent. The first 
stone of the structure was laid on April 23, 1563, and on 
September 13, 1584, the building was completed. The last 
stone placed in the building is marked by a cross, and 
is always pointed out to visitors by their guides. Its 
subsequent history is thus graphically given. The King 
came to live here in 1584, as soon as the building was 
habitable, and here he lived until his death in 1598. The 
site of the palace is 2,700 feet above the sea-level, and its 
form is a rectangular parallelogram — seven hundred and 



466 GRANT'S TOUR 

forty-four feet from the north to the south and five hundred 
and eighty from east to west. There are courts and win- 
dows, with turrets. A tradition has grown up that these 
are made to represent the gridiron on which St. Lawrence 
suffered martyrdom — that, if you were to go up in a bal- 
loon and look down on the Escurial, it would resemble a 
huge gridiron, with the feet turned upward. I would 
rather believe this story than not, for there is something 
charming in the idea of a great king taking a gridiron as 
an emblem of architectural beauty, and building therefrom 
one of the most wonderful monuments in the world. There 
was so much of the gridiron in the character of this la- 
mented sovereign — the desire to roast people for the glory 
of God and the grandeur of Spain — that one hates to 
abandon the fable, and I rather fancy that tradition is right, 
and that, whether the King intended it or not, his nature 
asserted itself, and we have a gridiron after all. A statue 
as you enter is that of St. Lawrence, for whom this con- 
vent is named and in whose honor it was built. The saint 
has a gridiron in his hand as a token of his martyrdom. 
The steel knob that opens the door of the church is in the 
form -of a gridiron. In one of the rooms which we shall 
soon see is a picture of the martyrdom of the saint, by 
Titian — a tremendous picture, full of gloom and j)Ower; 
one of the few martyrdoms which attract and do not repel, 
so great is the genius of the artist. You observe, therefore, 
that the gridiron has much to do with the Escurial. In 
1557, in the earliest days of the King's reign — before his 
father had died, in fact — although he was among the 
monks in Estramadura, Philip fought the French at St. 
Quentin. The battle going badly with him, he called on 
St. Lawrence. This saint was a Spaniard, born in the Ara- 
gon country, near the Pyrenees, and was broiled on a grid- 
iron over a slow fire by one of the Roman emperors in 26L 



AROUND THE WORLD. 467 

So Pliilip called to Lawrence, and vowed that if lie were 
only made free of the French or strengthened to defeat 
them he would build a monument to the saint so vast that 
the world would ever hold it in awe. So the saint took a 
hand in the fight and destroyed the French, and Philip 
could have taken Paris had he been so minded. But out 
of this came the Escurial and the tradition of the gridiron. 
I do not see how one can resist the story. It is the whim 
of a king, and what should we hold more in reverence than 
the whims of kings ? So were the Pyramids — the only 
monument that reminds you of the Escurial. It was 
the whim of Frederick's father to have tall soldiers, of 
Louis XVI. to file locks, of George IV. to work over the 
buttons and trousers of his soldiers. Let us reverence the 
whims of the kings ! How much more of a king, this 
Philip, to put away soldiers and locks and trousers, and, 
rising to the dignity of his gridiron, make it the emblem 
of beauty — make it, even as you now see it, a monument 
of the superstition, the tyranny, the grandeur and the 
gloomy pride of an age when the cloister swayed his scep- 
tre and his sceptre ruled the world ! We are told, and I 
repeat the information as a mathematical fact, that the 
building covers a half a million square feet ; that there are 
eighty-eight fountains, fifteen cloisters, eighty-six staircases, 
sixteen court-yards, and three thousand feet of fresco. 

The party visiting the building at this time consisted of 
General and Mrs. Grant, James Pussell Lowell, our Minis- 
ter, and his wife ; Colonel Noeli, the Spanish soldier and 
gentleman-in-waiting on the General, and Mr. Young. 

A visitor describes the visit to the Escurial in the fol- 
lowing words : — You come to the Escurial station, and de- 
scend. We come under the shadow of the monastery, and 
walk over a stony esplanade to the gate. A courteous offi- 
cer of the royal household awaits us, and attendants in a 



468 GRANT'S TOUR 

portentous royal livery — grave, elderly men, with staves 
— greet us as we enter. The door clangs back, and we are 
in a wide, square court-yard of stone. Walls, window- 
facings, arches, eaves, pavements, columns, cloistered ways, 
all stone. As the door closes and we tramp along over the 
resounding slabs, we feel that the world has closed behind 
us ; that we have left the nineteenth century and its follies 
behind us, and are now back in the seventeenth century, 
Avhen Spain ruled the world ; when heretics were burned ; 
when saints blessed this goodly land ; when we had for our 
master a sovereign worthy of the name, who hated Jews 
and Moors and Englishmen — who lived a king and died 
the most devout and penitent of sinners. 

We were escorted into the royal apartments, for kings 
have lived here, although not as in Philip's day. What 
we see are a series of rooms, rooms running into rooms, 
plainly furnished, with some exceptions. The tapestry is 
worth studying, and j)erhaps we should study it, but Gen- 
eral Grant, who has no eye for tapestry, would be quite as 
Avell pleased with wall-paper, and pushes on to the win- 
dows, where he can see something growing, and beyond 
which you may not only see the rocky hills, but a garden 
that has been ravaged from the rocks. As you look from 
the window, up against thfe hill, you are shown a re- 
cess — two or three rocks formed like a chair — where 
Philip was wont to sit and brood over his gridiron as it 
grew into shape. We are reminded that it would be well 
worth climbing up the hill and sitting in Philip's seat. 
But the way is long and the ascent is rough, and a cold 
wind is blowing, and one can see as much of the Escurial 
as he wants without encountering pneumonia. The tapes- 
try represents pictures of Goya and Teniers, and goes back 
to the time of Charles III. and Charles IV. Charles III. 
was almost good enough, as king, to have been a President 



AROUND THE WORLD. 469 

of the United States, and lie is, perhaps, the only one since 
Charles V. who could have stood the tests of a candidature, 
and he did many things to improve Spain, to restore her 
j)alaces, and add to her prosperity. The only rooms that 
rise to royal value are a suite of four chambers in a corner, 
which were occupied by Isabella. I do not think there are 
four more beautiful rooms in the world. The walls are in- 
laid with rare woods ; the floors, the window-sills, every 
portion, has been as carefully decorated as though they 
had been the masterpieces of Cellini. There was a table, 
on which Isabella was wont to write her letters and procla- 
mations, a gem of decoration, as perfect as a picture. The 
whole is in exquisite taste, and shows lavish expense and 
extreme care in workmanship. The cost of the rooms 
alone is set down at $1,400,000. I did not learn under 
which king this was done, but presume it was Charles IV. 
Philip never S23ent so much money on wood-carving. He 
kept it for relics and stone. 

We were then taken to the library, A polite attendant 
escorted us into the room, which looked warm and cosy, 
really the only living room in the Escurial. There were 
pictures — Philip with his snake eyes, Charles with his 
drooling, drooping jowl; Charles I. in armor, and one of 
the third Philip, almost as great a fool as Charles IL, 
with a weak but human face. The floors of this library 
are marble, and the walls are gayly colored, and you ob- 
serve that the edges of the books are turned towards you, 
and not the backs. There seemed to be no reason for this, 
but it had always been the custom in the Escurial. You 
observed, however, that the names of the books were 
printed on the edges in light letters, and so for all useful 
purposes the books are as accessible as if the backs were 
towards you. The library has shifted backward and for- 
ward, and during one of the shiftings, when the later Fer- 



470 GRANT'S TOUR 

dinancl was king, about ten thousand volumes were lost. 
What became of them no one knows. It is not polite to 
ask questions of a king. It must have been a rare library 
in its day, especially in works of chivalry and theology. 
I ran along some of the shelves, as our party was pattering 
about the room, but they seemed mostly works of fathers' 
and commentaries on the faith. We were shown some 
prayer-books and missals — the real book from which 
Philip sang and prayed — well thumbed, and the prayer- 
books of others of the family. There were also some 
Ai^abic manuscripts, said to be of great value, but not at- 
tractive to any of our party. 

We strolled about the corridors and looked at some 
curious wall paintings in a room where the guards assem- 
bled to wait on majesty and protect it. These were curious 
frescoes, showing the Moors at war with the Christians. 
They are not in the best preservation. Frenchmen have 
been here — so the guides assert — and the palace has been 
neglected ; and rain and damp, and the fearful storms that 
sometimes come down from the mountains, have affected 
them. As types of mediaeval civilization, of war as it was 
before America was discovered, these frescoes are valuable. 
The painter was sincere, and never gave the Moor a chance 
at the Christian, but made his work an encouragement to 
faithful Christians. There were other battle-pieces — Le- 
panto and San Quentin, where St. Lawrence came down 
with his gridiron and whipped the French — leading, among 
other consequences, to this convent. As we stroll through 
the corridors, and hear our guides humming over their 
narratives — -having our own thoughts, and feeling, at 
times, as if we would like to murder the guides for in- 
truding upon them — as we walk through these stern 
cloisters, and look out into the court-yards at fountains 
which do not play, and trace the magnitude and useless- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 471 

ness of this stupendous pile, we liear the voices of children 

— of lads scampering and at play. They come upon you 
with a peculiar import, these laughing, joyous sounds 
ringing through these vaulted corridors. Why should 
they disturb the well-earned gloom which rests on the 
ashes of Philip ? But alas for the decadence of the age ! 
We learn that here, even in the Escurial, a school has 
been opened, and that the boys have broken from their 
lessons and are at play. So sad are the inroads of this 
iconoclastic age, when even the schoolmaster invades the 
Escurial. 

In its days of glory the Escurial was the home of 
monks. We are shown the cells, their refectory, where 
they prayed and washed and waited for dinner. The 
monks have vanished, although the few priests who remain 
might have served. One priest showed us his quarters, 
which were cosy and pleasant, with a good outlook upon 
the gardens and the rocks, so that the holy man might turn 
his thoughts to nature when he wearied over the Psalms. 
There was not much hardship in the cells, if all were as 
pleasant as this, although early prayers in the chapter- 
house must have been a test of piety. We pass along other 
corridors towards the church. If you visit these cloisters, 
you will see how severe and plain they are. There is no 
Gothic waggishness, no grotesque carvings, no semblance 
of fruits and flowers to divert the worshipper from his 
books. All is stone — heavy, well-clamped, arched stone, 
with a few lines at the top of the. columns — plain, straight 
lines — no more. No imagination, no poetry, no harmony 

— simple strength. The builder had no time to waste on 
the beautiful. One idea pervaded the whole design — the 
idea of stern, remorseless strength. I can think of nothing 
more wearisome in time, than life in these sombre, pitiless 
walls, through which you wander and wander until there 



472 GRANT'S TOUR 

would seem to be no end. How grateful it is to hear the 
shouts of the children at play ! 

This court-yard, over which we are passing, is the court 
of the kings. It leads to the church, which is surmounted 
by four of the kings of Judah. I have forgotten their 
names, but remember Melchizedek and Solomon. These 
statues are seventeen feet high, cut out of granite, the 
heads and hands of marble, the crowns of bronze. There 
is nothing striking about them, excej^t their size. In fact, 
you are not allowed to escape from the impression that 
came upon you as you were toiling along the railway over 
the stone bridges. It is all stone — cold, sombre, and op- 
pressive. It breathes the spirit of Philip, and falls upon 
you like a burden. But we have reached the church ; let 
us enter. 

We open a door, the handle of which is of steel, shaped 
like a gridiron, and we pause a moment to note how well 
the workman did that bit of work. But for that matter 
and this, let it be said, in passing, all the work in the 
Escurial has been well done — well hammered, well paved, 
well joined. It seems as if the workmen had only left it ; 
and yet for one hundred and eighty years the storms have 
beaten on these walls. But the eye of the master was u]3on 
the workmen, and whoever labored under that eye did 
honest work. We open a door and come into the church, 
the heart of the Escurial, from which the building draws 
its life. There is not much in the church, and the impres- 
sion at first is one of disapjDointment. We have heard so 
much of it — and is this all? We pass into the enclosure, 
and see only space. A few worshippers are kneeling on 
the stone floor. We hear the voices of priests chanting 
their offices. The bell tinkles, and we know that the mass 
is saying — a late mass at a side altar for tardy Christians. 
In a few minutes the priest passes us, carrying the sacred 



AROUND THE WORLD. 473 

vessels in liis hand, a couple of boys in surplices tugging 
after. The priest has his eyes partly shut, and mutters a 
prayer. A group of assisting priests follow, also mutter- 
ing prayers. The mass is over, and they are hurrying to 
breakfast. The congregation, not more than a dozen, dis- 
solves, one or two of them as they pass stopping to know 
if any of us would, for the sake of God and the Virgin and 
the saints, give them alms. All of this as we wander into 
the church and try to work out the problem of its beauty. 
It is vast enough — in fact, the impression is of space. 
There seems room to have done so much more. We are 
told by our guide that these aisles are three hundred and 
twenty feet long, two hundred and thirty feet wide, and 
three hundred and twenty high, and that there are three 
of them. But the mind has become so accustomed to other 
things in the way of churches, to the Gothic magnificence 
of Burgos and Seville and Toledo, to the marvellous sweep 
of St, Paul's; we are so familiar with Italian and other 
schools, to the high, vaulted arch and the groined columns, 
that something seems wanting. So, as we are bidden, we 
go up to the grand altar and study that. Note those 
broad marble steps that you are ascending. That screen, 
which is nearly a hundred feet high, was the work of an 
Italian, who gave seven years to its fulfilment. There are 
columns of jas23er and bronze, medallions and statues. 
The bronze tabernacle that was once a wonder of the world 
has gone, and what we see is wood. Some French soldiers 
came here, and they were very much in the position of 
Bismarck when before Paris — they wanted money. Bis- 
marck got his money out of the authorities, but the French- 
men had only their axes. So they hammered at the 
bronze tabernacle, supposing it to be silver, and now only 
the fragments remain. It is a pity some one did not tell 



474 GRANT'S TOUR ' 

the Frenclimen that they were hammering down bronze. 
We might have the tabernacle to-day. 

Somehow the church is not what we expected. It is 
only sj)ace. We note as we are standing on the altar step 
that above us, on the right and the left, are two groups of 
statues, effigies in bronze and gilt, which look so precious 
that we wonder the Frenchmen did not try their hammers 
upon them. On the left side, looking towards the altar, 
kneeling, with hands clasped in prayer and eyes fixed on 
the crucifix, is Charles V. His wife, daughter, and two 
sisters kneel with him. Opposite is Philip II., also kneel- 
ing, his hands clasped in prayer. Philip has three of his 
wives with him and one of his children, the unhappy Don 
Carlos. One wife is missing — Mary of England. After 
the Armada and the strange lapses that England was then 
making from the holy faith, I presume Mary was not wor- 
thy, even though she had been the spouse of so mighty a 
king, to be admitted into these holy precincts. This is the 
nearest approach that the makers of the Escurial permitted 
in the way of human pride. I suppose it is hardly fair to 
call it pride, for certainly there is a moral in these effigies, 
a moral to all who worship — that no king is so mighty 
but that he must kneel before God ; kneel and plead for 
his soul like the meanest beggar who sprawls on the clay. 

You will remember that this gracious King, who now 
rests with God, and whose bones are now mouldering in 
the vaults beneath our feet, had a passion for relics. The 
bone of a saint delighted him more than the cajjture of a 
citadel, and he felt more joy over the possession of a rem- 
nant of the cross than over the victory of Lepanto. Kings 
must have their whims, and after building this church to 
the glory of St. Lawrence and his gridiron, Philip resolved 
to have a museum of the most jDrecious relics in the world. 
In those days the way to royal favor was the bone of a 



AROUND THE WORLD. 475 

saint, and Spaniards who wished to rise in Philip's grace 
possessed themselves with holy things. The relic closet 
was shown us, and many were the objects of interest. 
But it is not what Philip left. The French were here, 
wanting money like Bismarck before Paris, and nothing 
was available but Philip's relic collection and enriched by 
his pious successors. To show his respect for the relics, 
Phili23 encased them in gold and silver. If he had 
sheathed them in lead or iron they would have lost none 
of their value as mementoes ; but only gold and silver 
would do. And so when the French treasure-seekers came 
with their axes the irresistible logic of events took them 
into this relic closet. No one knows what havoc they 
made. There were a hundred sacred vessels in gold and 
silver. All were taken. There was a special statue of 
the Virgin in silver — an object precious to the faithful; 
but it was precious to the French because of the silver and 
the gems. It was melted into ingots, and the gems found 
a place on profane bosoms. Mournful, too, was the fate 
of the statue of St. Lawrence — a full-length figure, weigh- 
ing four hundred and fifty pounds — of pure silver. The 
hand of the image held one of the real bars of the gridiron 
on which the saint suffered. This bar was set in gold. 
All have vanished, all but the iron. Silver and gold went 
into the melting-pots, the iron was saved by some miracle 
and still remains at the Escurial, a comfort to believers. 
It is said that fourteen wagons were required to carry off 
relic plunder to Madrid. It was sad enough to lose all 
this gold and silver, but the relics lost their value. The 
bones became mixed, for the rapacious French, intent only 
on the gold and silver and gems, gave no heed to the holy 
remnants. So, when the heart-broken priests came to their 
own again, nothing remained but the bones, all heaped and 
strewn. Some were saved — among them the precious bar 



476 GRANT'S TOUR 

of the gridiron, which, once it had shed its gold casings, 
was of no value to French eyes. As a collection of relics 
the treasure of Philip was no more, and the sense of the 
loss still i-emains in the Escurial. All of which should be 
taken as a lesson, that when you have a relic, keep it free 
from the dross of the money-craving world. Philip lost 
his relics because he debased them with silver and gold. 

The Escurial is something more than a palace. It is 
a school, a church, and a tomb. When Charles V. was 
about to leave his throne, he charged his son to build a 
royal tomb worthy of the kings of Spain. So Philip com- . 
bined two vows, one to his father and the other to St. Law- 
rence of the Gridiron, and the result is the Escurial. Under 
the church — directly under the altar, so that when the 
priest raises the host, at the moment of elevation, he stands 
immediately over the sepulchre — this tomb was built. 
Our way down was over smooth steps of marble and jasper, 
so smooth that we were warned to walk warily. The room 
is dark, and the attendants carry tapers, which throw a 
glimmering light. It was Philip's idea to have the tomb 
severely plain, in keeping with the Escurial, but his son 
added marbles and bronzes and other decorations, and you 
note that the room is one of splendor. It is an octagon, 
thirty-six feet in diameter and thirty-eight feet high. 
There is a chandelier, bronze angels, a large crucifix, quite 
life-size, and an altar before which a lamp burns. The 
monarchs rest in shelves, four shelves in a row one over 
the other, each range separated from the other by double 
columns in bass-relief, with Corinthian caps. The decora- 
tions are elaborate, out of keeping with the Escurial, and 
not seemly in a tomb. There were twenty-six compart- 
ments, all of them filled with coffins, but many of the coffins 
wanting in occupants. The coffins are ready, and if the 
monarchy lasts there are enough for generations of kings 



AROUND THE WORLD. 477 

unborn. Kings and queens reigning and the mothers of 
reigning sovereigns alone are admitted. The coffins are of 
black marble, with spaces hollowed out for the shells of the 
dead sovereigns. The first is Charles V. His name is 
engraved on his coffin in plain Roman letters. He rests 
in the top comjDartment, on the left of the crucifix. The 
queens are ranged in order on the left. Here repose the 
ashes of all the S23anish sovereigns since Charles, with the 
exception of Philip V. and Ferdinand VI. They preferred 
to sleep elsewhere, not caring to have the company, even 
in death, of the Austrian sovereigns. The remains are not 
brought here until some years after decease. They are 
kept in another part of the Escurial known as the place of 
jDutrefaction. In this place, which we passed as we came 
down, are the remains of Don Carlos, of whom Schiller 
wrote ; Don John of Austria, who was famous in his day, 
and the Duke of Vendome, whose name is given to the 
Napoleon square in Paris. Within the present year two 
have died, whose place will be in this Pantheon — Chris- 
tina, queen of Ferdinand VIL, grandmother of the King, 
and grandmother, too, of the hapless young Mercedes, 
queen of Alfonso, who sleejDS up-stairs in peace after a brief 
honeymoon. During the Republic a commission opened 
the coffin of Charles V. The body had been dead for 
over three centuries, but it was ^o well preserved that even 
in its decay you could trace the features which the pencil 
of Titian has made immortal. This coffin had been opened 
once before, nearly a hundred years after death. Philip 
IV. was prompted to hold ghastly intercourse with his 
great ancestor. He found the body well preserved — so I 
found the story in print — and, after looking for some time, 
turned to his courtiers, " Don Luis, a great man ? " " Yes, 
my lord, very great." It was here that Charles 11. came 
after he lost his fair young queen. He looked at her fixed 



478 GRANT'S TOUR 

and fading form, and mslied out in tears, exclaiming, " Slie 
is' gone, and I shall soon be with her." Very soon he was 
brought down the marble and jasper steps, and idle sight- 
seers tap his coffin with a cane, the very coffin where he 
has slept for a hundred and eighty years. Not long since, 
says one of our attendants, a Spaniard came in and knelt 
at the altar, asking to be alone a little while that he might 
pray for the repose of the illustrious dead about him. In 
a few minutes the attendants returned, and found that he 
had shot himself with a pistol. He had a mad fancy to- die 
in royal society. 

We are glad enough to see sunshine and to leave the 
tomb, even although it were not unprofitable to linger and 
meditate upon the lessons of human vanity which are no- 
where so sternly taught as in the Escurial. Some practical 
soul proposes breakfast, and that done, some one of the 
party, not quite so practical, proposes that we return, and 
wander through the church and look at the relics. As a 
special honor to the General, w^e are to be shown a fragment 
of the true cross, and the gridiron-bar which was miracu- 
lously saved from the French. But the General has seen 
enough of the Escurial, and prefers to walk under the 
trees, and see things grow, and smoke his cigar. His mind 
is not receptive as to relics, and he is willing to take them 
for granted, es23ecially the true cross, which he has seen in 
various European places. So he wanders down the road, 
and we return to the convent. A young priest with an 
ascetic face, such a one as you see on. some canvases of Ra- 
phael, attends us, and we are led once more into the deposi- 
tory of the most sacred emblems of the Catholic faith. 

I suspect it was the cigar and the inviting sunshine, and 
the desire to stroll along the street of Escurial village, that 
deprived the General of the only chance he will ever have 
of seeing these holy treasures. Our young priest led us to 



AROUND THE WORLD. 479 

tliem with reverence. To him, whatever they may have 
been to us, they were the embodiments of his faith. When 
he looked at them he bent his head in adoration. When 
he took them in his hands it was to press them reverently 
to his lips, as a son might revere the form of a dead parent. 
He believed it all in complete humility, and it was beauti- 
ful, coming as we did out of the icy, cynical world, our 
minds filled with Eastern questions and Spanish j^olitics, 
and tavern charges and Tammany Hall elections — it was 
beautiful to see the loyal acceptance our friend gave to his 
treasures. This little glass tube, for instance ; it might be 
a vial from the pharmacy, with drops, but it contains a 
fragment of the purple robe that was thrown over our 
Saviour. You can see that the robe retains its color, al- 
though there is not enough to cover a button on your 
waistcoat. That fragment, no larger than the tip of your 
little finger, is a fragment of the cross on which our blessed 
Lord was nailed, and this that you can dimly see through 
the darkened glass is one of the thorns that pierced His 
gracious brows. This bone, which, if you smell, gives out 
a fragrance like musk or incense, was a bone of some saint 
— Lawrence, if I remember; while the faded altar-cloth 
covered with glass was used by Becket when he served the 
mass in Canterbury. There are iron weapons which were 
used in early days to torture the Christians, and more in- 
teresting than all are some manuscripts of St. Teresa — 
Theresa of Jesus," as she signs herself. St. Teresa has 
always been a favorite saint. The motive of her life was 
so beautiful — self-denial, self-sacrifice, doing her work in 
humble ways, without pretence, without ambition. Your 
saints who did extravagant things are very good in their 
way, and God forbid that I, a mere sinner, wandering in 
dark and wicked ways, should dare to criticise those whom 
a church has deemed holy. If St. Denis carried his head 



480 GRANT'S TOUR 

under his arm, and St. Ignatius made religion a battle and 
lived in constant war with his enemies, it was their way of 
devotion. St. Teresa lived her life for the good she could 
do — like the field flower that blooms under the rock, 
blooms from the felicity of blooming, and after doing its 
part fades into the darkness and the dew. If I ever build 
a church, it will be to St. Teresa. Building churches, 
however, is a thing which many a well-meaning person 
means to do some day without ever doing it, like joining 
the Masons, or owning a yacht, or subscribing for the 
North American Review, or becoming a reform candidate 
for Congress. So I give St. Teresa my benediction, and 
thanking the priest for opening his treasures, we wander 
out into the corridors. 

There are pictures to be seen, although the best of them 
are down at the Madrid Museum. I remember the " Last 
Supper " of Titian, among the greatest of his works. Last 
Suppers have never been a satisfactory theme in art. You 
might call them anything. The motive does not appear. 
I can understand how Titian's men might have been apos- 
tles, fishers of men, saviours of men ; I can understand 
that the man Jesus looked even so when He was with us. 
So much strength, so much purity, so much resignation — 
the painter with his brush telling the story of man's re- 
demption. The scene is the moment when Christ an- 
nounces His betrayal and His departure. John leans on 
the table in an agony of grief, while Jesus, with loving 
touch, rests one hand on his shoulder. The other hand 
rests on the table, the fingers extended in the act of con- 
versation. The hand tells the story, and as a study of 
hands alone — of ex]3ression as found in the hand — this 
picture is a marvel. Note, for instance, the group at the 
extreme left of the picture. A Jew — some follower or 
friend of the apostles — comes in hastily and whispers his 



AROUND THE WORLD. 481 

message. The grief, tlie horror of the message, are ex- 
pressed in the hands, one of which falls on the breast in 
despair, while the other inadvertently clutches a fragment 
of bread on the table, as though it would dare Fate. Sor- 
row, grief, anger, fear, even remorse, are written on the 
varying faces, while over all the holy presence falls like a 
benediction, and you can almost hear the words of hope 
and resignation from Divine lij)s. How well this work is 
done! How the colors glow, as though they had been 
painted only yesterday ! And yet three centuries have 
passed since they were flushed on the canvas. There is a 
Jacob and his children, from Velasquez, which shows the 
character, but not the strength, of that great master. Even 
as a gallery of art the Escurial would be worth studying, 
were it not that all galleries in Spain are thrown into the 
shade by the unrivalled collection in the museum at Mad- 
rid. 

But the church ! Somehow it disappoints us ; and yet 
we delight to stroll about it; and it grows, and in time the 
idea of the builder, the idea of space, simple space, becomes 
impressive. You have something of the feeling with which 
St. Peter's impresses you — disappointment at first, and in 
the end awe. The Escurial church does not com23are with 
St. Peter's in magnitude or in splendor of conception. But 
it is a noble thought, and grows upon you more and more. 
The mind is not carried away by decorations and perplex- 
ities of moulding and stone carving, as in some of the 
modern churches. You miss the majesty of the Gothic 
art, in which every line seems an aspiration for a better 
life, and where the devotion of generations finds expression 
in stone. But the simplicity of it, the repose, the subor- 
dination of everything to the idea of worship, make the 
church of the Escurial memorable among religious monu- 
ments. We went up into the choir, where the monks sat 



482 GRANT'S TOUR 

in monkisli days and chanted their prayers. There were 
the rows of seats, in hard wood, plainly carved, well worn 
and tawny with generations of devotees. In the corner 
was the seat of Philip. The King came with his monks 
and said his prayers. Here he sat chanting his misereres, 
like a cowled friar. You sit in the royal seat, and look 
out u]3on the vast space, and trace the decorations of the 
altar, and think of the gaudy tomb, where rests so much 
greatness and ambition, and try to comprehend this Escu- 
rial, which falls ujDon you with a sense of oppression, it is 
so gloomy and sombre and strange, and to trace out the 
mind of the unhappy tyrant who vainly sought refuge 
from himself. All have vanished — the monks with their 
cowls, the king with his crown, the armies he commanded, 
the princes who feared him, the majesty that was omnipo- 
tent — all have vanished. The church remains, and priests 
still recite their offices, and j)ray that the glory of Philip's 
days may return to Spain. His sceptre and his crown re- 
main ; but, alas ! under what conditions. They are but 
shadows of what he left behind him, and so fickle is the 
world that any moment a storm may come, and even the 
shadows will depart. 

Here for a moment let us pause at an altar, before which 
lamps are burning, overladen with flowers and immortelles 
and beads and every form of decoration. This is the rest- 
ing-place of the young Queen Mercedes — her temporary 
resting-place before she is gathered into the Pantheon to 
sleep with her ancestors. In January she was a bride, in 
June she was a corpse — all in this year. Spain is in 
mourning for her. She was so young, so beautiful, such a 
winning little thing. In January she was married in San 
Autocha, Montpensier leading her to the altar, and never 
was such a pageant known in Spain. The King, so young, 
bounding with freshness and ambition ; the Queen, all 
grace, beauty, kindness. Surely no monarchy ever set out 



AROUND THE WORLD. 483 

under liappier auspices. Tlie King a Spaniard, the Queen 
a Spaniard — why not look forward to the longest and 
happiest of reigns ? I was looking at a picture-book the 
other day — an annual almanac, with illustrations telling 
the events of the year — a Christmas publication which 
newsboys hawk around Madrid. There was one full page 
engraving of the marriage — the .King and the Queen 
making their vows, the ArchbishojD pouring a plate of coin 
into the royal hands, lords in waiting sustaining the long 
train, attending priests following the service, and in the 
background the beauty, the grandeur, the nobility of Spain 
come to smile upon the nuptials. This was the 22d of 
January. A few pages on and there was another picture. 
It is a room in the royal palace. The body of the poor 
Queen is lying in state, her head in a nun's cap, in her 
hand a cross. Huge torches surround the bier. Men at 
arms are on guard. In front is a crucifix, life-size ; lords 
in waiting, in full apparel, attend Her Majesty — one of 
them, his face buried in his handkerchief, weeping. A 
barrier keeps off the streaming crowd coming to take fare- 
well of the Queen. By the side is a standard bearing the 
arms of her house. This was on June 27, 1878. And 
this is the end of it all — a corner in the Escurial chapel, 
overladen with flowers and decorations, a priest kneeling 
at prayer, and a group of idle travellers who see this among 
other sights and pass on. 

But before we say farewell to ih^ Escurial, let us pay a 
visit to the home of the great King who founded it. We 
pass up a stairway and enter a small cell paved with brick. 
There is a larger room adjoining. In one of the cells 
Philip lived and died, in the other attendants awaited his 
will. A window of the cell opens into the church, and 
the King, as he lay on his pallet, could fix his eyes on the 
priest at mass, on the Sacred Host as it typified the act of 
expiation, on the kneeling statue of his father. This is 



484 GRANT'S TOUR. 

what it all came to — this ruler of many continents — 
nothing but this dingy cell, into which no light comes, an 
old man, in agony and fear and self-reproach, dreading, 
wondering, trembling, over the brink of his fate, hoping 
that prayer and song and sorrow and priestly intercessions 
may save his soul. The rooms are as Philip left them, if 
we except the necessary cleaning and scrubbing. There 
is a faded taj^estry on the wall, in which you trace the 
royal arms of Austria- — his father's arms. There is a 
monk's chair on which Philip sat to receive ambassadors 
and ministers ; two plain, stuffed, wooden chairs, where they 
could sit in his royal presence if he so willed. The floors 
are of plain brick, trampled and worn. Here was the end 
of his royalty and pomjD. Here he died in misery, and 
with him the greatness of Spain, if it can be called great- 
ness, which I much question. Philip was the last of the 
Spanish kings. In him was embodied all that went to 
make a king — divine right, absolute power, indifference 
to human suffering, fanaticism, bigotry, subserviency to 
the darkest forms of mediaeval superstition. He was the 
last of the kings, and it seems poetic in its justice that he 
should die as he did — that he should leave behind him 
this stujDcndous trophy of his character and his name. 
Grateful is the sunshine, grateful the growing elms under 
which we walk back to our stopping-place. It is like 
coming out of the seventeenth into the nineteenth century. 
And as the train tugs back to Madrid — and we cast a last 
look at the Escurial through the gray, deepening shadows 
of the coming night — the wonder that we have felt at a 
work so unique and stupendous gives place to gratitude 
that the age which made it possible has passed away — 
that the power which it embodied has gone into the depths, 
with the crimes and follies of antecedent generations, and 
that its only value now is as the monument of a dreary, 
cruel, and degrading age. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

GEI^ERAL GEANT AT TOLEDO THE CITY OF THE EOMAN, 

THE GOTH, AND THE MOOR MEDIEVAL MEMORIES 

MONUMENTS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY THE CATH- 
EDRAL HEBREW MEMORIES THE TREASURES OF 

THE CATHEDRAL FAREWELL TO TOLEDO A VISIT 

TO PAU A GRAND HUNTING-GROUND A MEET ON 

A FROSTY DAY THE FINISH A SHORT HUNT A 

HAPPY OCCASION. 

During their sojourn in Spain, General Grant and his 
party visited Toledo. A correspondent thus describes the 
place and the visit : — Toledo is a graveyard, where are 
funeral monuments of all the civilizations of Spain. You 
walk through its streets with the melancholy interest which 
death ins23ires. All is so still and dead and hushed. 
Clinging to its rocky steep, looking out over the stripped 
iiills of Castile, its turrets seen from afar, it seems to have 
been forgotton by the world, to be a decoration or a gem 
fastened to the world's bosom, and not a tangible, living part 
of earth. It is on the banks of a river whose waters might 
carry merchandise to the sea. It has an outlook upon a 
noble valley, and the view from its castle-turrets is one 
of the finest in Spain. It is the centre of a rich district. 
But Madrid on the one side, and Seville on the other, have 
drained the currents of its prosperity, and it lies stranded, 
interesting only because of the memorable events that have 
occurred within its walls. If you seek out its history, you 
must go back to the time of the Hebrews, and learn that, 
when the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem by Nebu- 
chadlnezzar, they came to Toledo. I .do not vouch for this 



486 GRANT'S TOUR 

story. When old Nebuchadnezzar comes in there is always 
reason for debate. It is as well worth believing as any 
other. Toledo was in Tarshish. We know the Jews, when 
driven out by their granivorous conqueror, went anywhere ; 
and no city in Spain, even now, has more Jewish remains 
than Toledo. My impression is that if the Jews had set- 
tled in Toledo and gone home again, it would have not 
been simply a legend, but the theme of psalms and proph- 
ecies, and orthodox churchmen at home would be singing 
how they sat by Tagus' stream and hung their harps on 
the trees and wept. It is easy to trace Jewish progress, 
because the Jews have had the ear of the civilized world, 
allowing us to forget nothing that could be preserved in 
prose or verse. We know that the Goths made Toledo 
their capital, probably their strongest city. The Moors 
never regarded it as more than a border city, an outpost. 
The seat of their empire was kept in Andalusia. They 
liked the orange-ripening sun. Toledo, high up on a 
mountain ascent, two thousand four hundred feet above 
the level of the sea, was cold. Grenada was warmer and 
more preferable. But the Goths, coming from snow lands, 
found Toledo grateful, and here they planned their strong- 
hold. When the Christians came they took Toledo. This 
was four centuries before Grenada fell. It was in its splen- 
dor the century before America was discovered. In the 
thirteenth century was built the great cathedral, and fresh 
from its sublime influence I can well understand the monks 
saying and the people believing that it so pleased the Vir- 
gin that she came down to see it, and brought with her to 
show them its glory various saintly friends, among them 
St. Peter and St. Paul. 

If Charles V. had not been morbid in his later years, 
Madrid would never have come into being, and Toledo 
would now be the capital of Spain. But Charles had gout 



AROUND THE WORLD. 487 

or some sucli trouble, and craved a dry air, and so pitched 
upon Madrid, and ordered his capital to be there built. 
Then Madrid was the exact centre of Spain, and that gave 
a mathematical reason for the whim. In the early days, 
Madrid was simply an outpost ; no one ever dreamed of 
living on a plain where nature now and then plays such 
heart-torturing pranks ; where summers are too warm and 
winters too cold ; and there is not a monumental stick or 
stone to recall Spain's pious mediseval past. Toledo had 
every tie — wealth, population, loyalty, a society in high 
culture, and a ripe and memorable past. But the royal 
nerves were tender, and so Madrid was conceived and 
Toledo was doomed. All that remains of her is the past, 
and you enter her gates with reverent and mournful steps, 
as you would enter the gates of a graveyard. 

You climb up a winding road and pass under arches 
and over moats and through fortified walls and into the 
town. This is the road the old knights came, and you re- 
call the pictures and the story-books — my lady watching 
from the battlements for her lord, and my lord coming, 
seen from afar, his casque decked with trophies of war, his 
sword at rest, and my lady waving a joyous, streaming, 
tearful welcome. For my lord has been out to fight the 
Moors, or he comes weary from the unavailing field of 
Koncesvalles, or, like a chivalrous knight, he may have 
been championing distress all over Spain, or perhaps he 
has been to the Holy Land. Many a knight has climbed 
this hill, and ridden proudly under this arch, for the days 
of chivalry were the days of Toledo's fame. Nor would 
it surprise me to see my old friend Don Quixote sallying 
forth with his Mambrino helmet, for Toledo was a place 
known to Cervantes, and these very walls that look down 
on us so blindly, have often beheld his wise, grave, royal 
brow. There are no carriages here. There is no traffic. 



488 



GRANT'S TOUR 



'There are no voices in clatter and trade. Tlie streets are 
so narrow that with outstretched hands you can touch the 
walls. It is consequently warmer in winter and cooler in 
summer. Then it was such a protection against the Moor, 
who found it difficult to make his way into the towns with 
narrow streets. It was so friendly to talk socially, to sit 




THE JEWS OF TOLEDO. 



at your window, or lean over your balcony and chat across 
the streets and up and down the streets, and be all, as it 
were, one pleasant family. And as for carriages — what 
knight or cavalier ever wanted a carriage ? It was effem- 
inate. In those days every gentleman rode on horseback, 
as your true gentleman should. And if you look at the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 489 

houses as you pass, you ^ will note that the knockers are 
very high — so high that no footman could reach them 
without a ladder. This was for the convenience of the 
cavaliers, who could make their signals as they sat on 
horseback, and as the gates swung open, they rode in. 

What repose, what quietude! What a tremendous row 
it would make to see a street fight, or a fire-engine at full 
run, or a shoal of ragged newsboys crying the Toledo 
Herald, with King Ferdinand's great victory over the 
Moors. Don't you remember that beautiful incident in 
Ferdinand's life? I do not know how true it is, but it 
ought to be true, which is about the same thing, talking 
of matters that happened so long ago. King Ferdinand 
went out to fight the Moors, and won a famous victory — 
the renowned battle of Toro — and Isabella, his wife, re- 
mained at home. To surprise her lord, and show what a 
good wife she was, and how she prayed for him, and 
thought about him as he was away slashing the infidels, 
she called her workmen and said, — "Build me a church, 
and let it be as beautiful as art can devise, and have it 
ready when my lord returns." And it was done, and 
this is the church in which we are now entering, General 
Grant and the civil authorities, and Mr. Reed, the Secre- 
tary of Legation, who has come down to Madrid for a 
holiday. This is the Church St. John of the Kings, and 
its chief attraction is the legend I have written, a legend 
told me in 1873 by my old friend Adolpho, so well known 
to Americans who have visited Spain, and who had as 
many stories and aphorisms as Sancho Panza. Adolpho 
has given up the dissemination of information to tourists, 
and is in the wholesale beer trade, and believes in an es- 
tablished government, and taxpayers going to the front, 
although when I knew him he was a republican, and I 
half sus23ected had been out on a barricade. The church 



490 'GRANT'S TOUR 

is a good specimen of what we might call overdone Gothic, 
odd to see, but not as edifying for prayer. The good 
Isabella found comfort here, as they show you her oratory, 
or kneeling-place, a niche in the wall, high up, where, 
with her maids of honor, she came and prayed. They 
show you the chains with which the Moors bound their 
Christian captives and martyrs. When the captives came 
home they hung up these chains as an offering to the 
Virgin, and here they have been hanging, for how long 
do you suppose? Why, ever since America was discovered. 
That seems to have happened so long ago, when looked at 
from Brooklyn bridge or the dome of the Capitol ; but in 
gray, crumbling, venerable Toledo, where you step from a 
civilization two thousand years old to one a thousand as 
you cross the street, where the wall which you pass was 
the glory of a Gothic architect, and the stones over which 
you pick your way were laid by the Komans, such an 
event as the discovery of America is hardly old enough to 
be interesting. In Toledo it is only news, not history: 

I presume the last work Toledo did was to fight the 
Moors. Then she paused, and, sitting placidly on her 
Castilian hills, she has rejoiced over that achievement ever 
since, and allowed the world to hurry past. This old per- 
son who carries the keys — how old he is ! Somehow you 
feel that he must have been here in Isabella's time, and I 
am sure, if we were to fall into talk, he would ask me if I 
had met any Moors, on the way, and whether their Catholic 
Majesties were holding their own in Grenada. This church 
is the newest thing in the place, and as a modern improve- 
ment — as an indication that Toledo holds her own, and 
real estate is looking up — the old man is very proud of it. 
You see what Toledo can do when she has a mind. Only 
how much more beautiful it might be if the French had 
not come and put it under contribution, and turned their 



AROUND THE WORLD. 491 

horses into it- as a stable. Yes, they came, the ruffians, 
and hacked away some of the convent walls, and carried 
away much gold and silver. But, praise be to the Virgin, 
whose miraculous intercession never fails, the chains were 
saved, and there they hang. The gold can be replaced, 
but the chains never. They encompassed the limbs of 
saintly men, martyred for the faith, and have ever since 
been a comfort to believers. It is only by a miracle that 
they escaped the French, and the memory of their pres- 
ervation brings tears to believing hearts, to whom St. John 
of the Kings would be nothing if these relics of mediaeval 
martyrdom had been stolen. Is there anything in this 
revolving world as beautiful as faith ? 

But we want to see some antiquities — something old. 
Here, as we pass, is a monument to a saint, Eugenio by 
name, who was sent here as bishop just 1,813 years ago. 
This good Eugenio made an errand to France and was 
murdered. A thousand years later a French archbishop 
discovered his body, and brought the right arm to Spain. 
And the second Philip, to whom a relic was more than a 
battle, made interest with Charles IX. — Massacre of Bar- 
tholomew Charles — and the whole body was restored to 
Spain. These precious relics were also miraculously pre- 
served from the French. 

Or you may trace the remains of a Roman circus or 
coliseum, where, in imperial days, the gladiators fought. 
It will require some patience and fancy to realize the circus. 
More apparent is a church, which was the continuation of 
a Boman temple, and, having done its duty to the gods, is 
now thr house of God. Here is a monument to St. Lacadia, 
patroness of Toledo, who died in faith 1,572 years ago. 
More than three centuries after her death she appeared to 
comfort a monk who had written a book in defence of the 
Virgin. She was wrapped in a mantle when she came — 



492 



GRANT'S TOUR 



an industrial fact in connection with the future life worth 
remembering. Her body was discovered in 1500, and 
Philip II., by the exercise of kingly jDOwer, had it brought 
to Toledo, and came, lilce a Christian king, to receive it 
in person. Here they rest — saved from the ravenous 
French. 

Or pass on your way to the Jewish synagogue, a most 
interesting monument. Spain in those days was not kind 
to the Jews. They had teeth and they had money, and as 



\->" 






l^-.-l-fri 







JEWISH SYNAGOGUE. 



Christian kings needed money, there was only one way for 
Jews to save their teeth. This synagogue is believed to be 
seven hundred years old, and although converted into a 
church, and afterwards — by Spaniards, not by French — 
turned into a barracks, there is enough left to show it was 
beautiful. There are the remains of another synagogue, 
even more pretentious, built by that good Hebrew, Samuel 



AROUND THE WORLD. 493 

Levi, who had so much money that Don Pedro tortured 
him and took his life, and devoted Levi's money to the dis- 
semination of comfort in the household of his Catholic 
Majesty. What one admires about these old kings, and 
which makes you wish you could be a monarch or a mon- 
archist of the twelfth or thirteenth century, was their 
frankness. There were no constitutions, no prime minis- 
ters, no diplomats to turn your purpose. They were kings 
by God's grace. God had given them the world to rule 
and enjoy. All that was belonged to them. And if any 
unbelieving Jew or Moor had diamonds or gold, it was 
their duty as Christian kings to see that this money was 
not applied to planting heresy or weakening faith ; to see 
that it contributed to the glory of God, and especially of 
those divinely appointed men whom God had given the 
world as king. And as I walked through Samuel Levi's 
synagogue, and thought of the shifts and cark and care his 
money cost him, and how in the end he had to go to the 
rack, and have his joints wrenched, and die in agony, it 
seemed very hard. But it was the logic of the situation, 
for no true king who respected hisfaith and his office would 
be in want while a Jew was in reach and the crunching 
irons at hand. 

How drow^sy is the town. What repose ! what peace ! 
One might make this a lotus land, and if he could only be 
accustomed to garlic, dream the hours away. We shift 
through the narrow streets and pass into a side-enclosed 
yard. Before us is a cloister, over which vines are grow- 
ing. A group of crooning women ask us to bestow some- 
thing upon them, as we hope to have Jesus and Mary with 
us at the last day. How your true beggar always goes into 
partnership with the Supreme Being ! A¥e turn into a 
high Gothic doorway, and from the gloom, through which 
at first we cannot see, so strong is the light from without, 



494 GRANT'S TOUR 

we hear priests clianting a vesper service. The gloom re- 
solves itself into pillars and arches and vases, and around 
us are kneeling men and women, and capped priests shuf- 
fling to and fro. The incense burdens the air, and tinted 
lightSj^come from the windows. This is the Cathedral of 
Toledo. 

I never weary of a cathedral, and have often, in the 
fulness of gratitude, thanked the men who found the Gothic 
form the most suitable for the worship of God. I look 
back on the cathedrals I have seen as so many poems — 
Canterbury, York, Notre-Dame, Strasburg, Burgos, Seville, 
Cologne — each separate, distinct, sublime ; but all inspired 
by the same holy thought. There is no one more beautiful 
than Toledo's. It is so simple, and yet so stately and mag- 
nificent. One could not help worshipping God here, for 
every line of architecture is instinct with worship. It was 
two hundred and sixty-six years between the laying of the 
first stone by St. Ferdinand and its completion. The year 
of its completion was the year when America was discov- 
ered. They say it was very rich before the French came 
and levied contributions upon its sacristy. But we have 
evidence that it is rich to-day. In the days of its glory 
the bishops of this church were soldiers, and you will learn 
at Gibraltar how archbishops of Toledo did not fear to go 
out with axe and sword and smite the Moor. This looks 
like the church of warrior-priests, and you can well imag- 
ine how its walls could be made a fortress strong enough 
to laugh many a siege to scorn. 

But it is not to reverence the soldier-priest that we come 
to so grand a church. Can we forget that Jesus had no 
higher attribute than peacemaker, that He came to heal 
and not to wound ? And let us be content with the softer 
aspects of the Cathedral. The expression of cathedrals is 
about the same. The best points to note are what pecu- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 495 

liarly belong to the church itself. Observe the tomb of 
Cardinal Mendoza. He was the almost royal coadjutor of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. Here lies Porto Carrero. He 
was the Bishop and Minister under that idiot Charles II., 
and really governed Spain. You will remember him as a 
proud, daring prelate, full of intrigue and craft, to whom 
Spain owes Philip V., the War of the Succession, and 
Europe that long, fierce, Marlborough war. His was the 
loftiest head of Spain, but it lies here very low, and on his 
tomb he commanded that there should be no name, simply 
the sentence, " Here lies ashes." Tombs succeeding tombs, 
chapels in profuse decoration — six centuries of Sj^anish 
history are enshrined. How strange the contrast — this 
living, glorious church, that was the embodiment of the 
greatness of Spain, that was to be a nation's cathedral, 
the centre of its power, the exponent of its religious pre- 
eminence — this vast and breathing church, every line in- 
stinct with imperial purpose, should now be in a dead, 
abandoned town ! The only living thing in Toledo is the 
Cathedral. It lives in the spirit of the fourteenth century. 
All the rest is dead. 

This smooth stone, worn by the salutations of genera- 
tions of worshippers, is a sacred spot. Here the Virgin 
came in person, even as she had lived, and her feet pressed 
this slab, now encased with red marble. It was in St. II- 
defonso's time, and she came to see this saint. You can 
see the stone where she alighted, and kiss it, as millions 
have kissed it before you. It seemed a pity that a foun- 
tain did not spring up, with healing in its waters, as at 
Lourdes, and added to the revenues of the town. A 
good shrine with paying qualities might have saved To- 
ledo. But this was not to be. Here is the rock, which 
you may kiss, and as for the rest, let us not question too 
curiously these manifestations of a most holy faith ; for 



496 



GRANT'S TOUR 



nothing is more beautiful tlian faith in this pitching, teem- 
ing world. 

The General was shown an accumulation of silver and 
gold as altar ornaments. They were saved from the French 
and carried to Cadiz. There was a cross, which was made 
of gold, brought over by Columbus from the West Indies 
— the cross that was planted on the towers of Grenada 




THE BATTLE OF TOLEDO. 



when taken from the Moors — and the sword with which 
the sixth Alonzo drove the Moors out of Toledo. There 
is a famous Virgin, with enough pearls and gold upon her 
dress to ransom a city. In 1868, some robbers came into 
the sacristy and carried off this Virgin. A priest managed 
to raise an alarm, and the blessed image was saved. It is 
eleven centuries old. Since the attempted robbery, the 
Virgin, Avith all valuable things, is kept guarded, and it 
was only as a special honor to General Grant that we were 
allowed to see them. Even then we were admitted into the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 497 

room witli tlie utmost precaution, and attendant priests 
kept watchful eyes, lest tlie temptation to walk off with a 
handful of pearls would be too strong. There were vest- 
ments which we looked at until we grew weary and yearned 
for the sunshine. Nothing is more grateful than to wander 
into a cathedral, to lose yourself as it were in its recesses, 
to study out the old inscriptions, to drink in the inspiration 
of the pious men who reared it ; to think of the eternity it 
represents, standing for ages — unchanged, unchanging — 
the temple of the same God, the home of the same undy- 
ing faith. How the world sinks from you, and you are in 
the presence of God ! Nothing could be more grateful. 
But to be shown a cathedral, to be handed about by priests 
and vergers, poking a braid or a bone or a faded cloth at 
you, mumbling legend after legend, in a mechanical, auc- 
tioneer fashion — nothing can be more distressing. And it 
was with something of the spirit of men in flight that we 
escaped into the grateful air. 

Nothing could have been better meant than the atten- 
tions of our friends the priests, who opened every treasure 
and showered us with the blessings of every relic. Toledo 
is not to be seen in a day or in a procession, as you see an 
agricultural show. The interest of the town is in her re- 
pose, her illustrious past. Toledo is a legend in stone. She 
has no relation to this age. She is the remnant of a city 
that was glorious in the days of Columbus. And yet her 
decay is not distressing. There is no gloom about the town, 
no misery, no gaping sources of poverty and crime. The 
world has gone beyond her, that is all; and she sits on her 
hillside in cheerful, contented old age, thinking of the days 
when kings came to her lap and princes did her bidding — 
thinking of the Koman and the Goth, the Moor and the 
Christian. They have all bowed down to her and wor- 
shipped her. Why should she care for the world of Jo- 



498 GRANT'S TOUR 

vellar and Martinez-Campos ? God forbid ! There were 
kniglits in her day, knights and warriors, who brought her 
gold from the Indies, and precious woods from Lebanon, 
and trophies of knightly prowess from the Holy Sepulchre. 
Let this sordid world rage and splutter. Serene Toledo 
sits, serene on her hillside, beautiful in her years and de- 
crepitude, content with the glory she has known, disdain- 
ing this world of commerce and uproar that rolls in the 
far distance. Thus she seemed to us as we whirled away 
in an evening train. The long rays of the setting sun 
slanted and flashed from her towers, typifying the splen- 
dor that once rested on her castled walls — a splendor 
rivalling, if not surpassing, that of any city in our modern 
civilization. 

It will be remembered that General Grant was intend- 
ing to visit Pan, but an invitation from the Spanish king 
caused him to abandon his visit at that time. He, how- 
ever, did visit that ancient city, a descrij)tion of which is 
given by the Herald correspondent in the following lan- 
guage : — Pan, so far as the weather is concerned, is not to 
be trusted. This morning there was a burst of "sunshine, 
and a walk to the environs was inviting. The snow had 
fallen during the night — just enough to be tantalizing, 
not enough for enjoyment and too much for comfort, which 
is about the way you generally find snow in this latitude. 
But the sun gave promise of open fields, with possibilities 
for the hounds in the way of finding a fox. Then Pau 
misbehaved itself in a weather- way so badly when General 
Grant came that all who cared for the good name of the 
old town of Henry of Navarre rejoiced in the sun. But 
the rejoicing was temporary, for almost before the morning 
shadows had thrown themselves over the peaks, black, 
heavy clouds came up from the sea. The snow came in 
feathery flakes and a strong wind blew it against your win- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 499 

dow-pane, and soon the mountains were hidden under a 
fleecy canopy, and the green hillsides became brown and 
gray, and the sparkling waters of the Gave were confused 
and blended with the falling snow. There was no refuge 
but what one would find at home on a bleak December 
day — a fire, a cigar, and a novel, or the writing of letters. 
As you looked down on the terrace an occasional phantom 
glided along, and you knew by the stride — the lunging, 
tramping stride — that some of our English friends were 
off for a jaunt through the valley, eager for the air and 
caring nothing for the snow or the rain. But capricious 
is Pau ! For as you study the storm — and there are few 
forms of natural ^beauty better worth studying — you look 
out over the hills and pale rifts of light aj)pear, and the 
black clouds become pearl, and roll and melt and break 
and become blue. Then you know that the sun asserts its 
power, for the skies come out clear and bright, the snow 
vanishes and the sunshine pours over the valley, and the 
Pyreneean summits once more mass themselves against the 
horizon, brighter and more radiant because of the snow 
that has fallen and the sun that has come to irradiate the 
snow. 

It is well understood that English civilization is imper- 
fect without hounds. So when the English invaded Pau 
and planted a colony the hounds were a necessary sequence. 
The country is favorable for hunting ; there are pleasant 
stretches across the valley, with ditches and fences. I sup- 
pose there are foxes enough, if huntsmen really wanted to 
find them in cover as they do in England, but this would 
be subject to many inconveniences. In England, hunting 
is a national amusement, and all classes accept it, and for 
generations hunting-men have roamed over the shires and 
found the foxes where they could. They were always at 
home. But in France it is a foreign amusement, and is 



500 GRANT'S TOUR 

well enough around Pan, where the people understand it, 
and the keen Bearnaise accepts it because it keeps English- 
men and Americans in Pan and brings him money. But 
if a hunting-party were to roam over the country as in the 
shires, the peasants would be apt to regard it as an inva- 
sion, and the gentlemen in pink and scarlet as Communists 
or Sj^aniards come to ravage their fields. The hunt, there- 
fore, is always a bag-hunt. A half-hour before the time a 
fox is carried in a bag over a route laid down by the Mas- 
ter of the Hounds and set free at a given point. This 
gives the fox time to hide or to make for Spain or return 
to Pau if so minded. It enables the Master of the Hounds 
to select a route that will be convenient to the hunters and 
to the farmers, who are sensitive about having growing 
fields ridden over. He can make the hunt a long one or 
a short one, as he pleases, also a matter to be considered in 
days when the weather is capricious. Even when there is 
frost on the ground, unless the frost is hard and binding, 
which does not often haj)j3en at Pau, a fair hunt may be 
assured. 

Pau is so much an English colony that fox-hunting 
has become an institution. Our beloved cousins wander 
over the world and seek out congenial places — air and 
scenery and sea. They bring their comforts with them, 
and you mark the site of an English camj)ing-ground as 
readily as the site of a camp on one of our prairies. Tea, 
pale ale, Tauchnitz's translations, Cheshire cheese, bacon, 
hounds, and horses — with some corner where you can 
worship according to the Established Church. The shop- 
men ada23t themselves to their invaders. As you wander 
about Pau, and look in at the windows, you see all kinds 
of traps baited with English "novelties." A blazing 
handbill tells you that the last London paper has arrived, 
with Beaconfield's speech, and a full report of the latest 



AROUND THE WORLD. 501 

" mystery." Signs tell you that " English is spoken " 
within, although the quality of English is not specified. 
Woollen goods abound, the Pau shopmen believing that 
English comfort demands a large amount of wool. Na- 
tional vanity is flattered by the names of the stores, one 
establishment near our hotel, given to gloves and hosiery, 
being named "The Prince of Wales." While these com- 
forts are spread out by the shopmen, the colonist must 
bring his amusements and his religion. If the colonist is 
a Catholic, Pau will be especially attractive. It seems, so 
far as I can learn, that the Virgin has a fancy for coming 
down to the Pyrenees. Her last appearance was at Lour- 
des, only forty minutes off. But I find that the Church 
has many traditions of such appearances at various points 
in this glorious mountain range. There are no amuse- 
ments in France, except sitting at a cafe, playing dominoes, 
and talking politics. Then the Englishman is a home- 
loving, gregarious being. He cannot enjoy his dinner 
unless he can have a friend to whom he can talk about it; 
how he enjoyed it, how he finds his digestion, and how 
strange it is that no one can cook a mutton chop on this 
side of the Channel, and although this is the land of the 
vine, all wine is beastly compared with what you drink in 
England. 

The Pau hunt is under the mastership of the Earl of 
Howth. This gentleman comes to Pau for reasons of 
health, and has taken the mastership, to the great satisfac- 
tion of all the residents. Lord Howth has presented two 
packs of hounds to the hunt, and gives great attention to 
all the details of the meeting. The presence in Pau of so 
distinguished a nobleman, famous for his intelligent interest 
in manly sports, has added greatly to the value of the hunt. 
What makes Pau difficult as a hunting-place is that it is, 
to use an English phrase, a " blind country." The agri- 



502 GRANT'S TOUR 

cultural necessities are so various and minute thai no one 
can tell when he takes to the fields where or when he may 
strike a ditch. There are innumerable obstacles, severe 
obstacles for the hunter — a great deal of bank jumping. 
The chevaux de pays are skilled in this, and they fre- 
quently have incidents of an amusing, but, I am glad to 
say, not as yet of a serious, kind. Sometimes a half-dozen 
riderless horses will be seen careering on their own hook. 
The best horses for hunting, and especially for such a 
country as Pau, are the Irish hunters, as there is bank 
hunting in Ireland as here. The coming of General Grant 
to Pau was welcomed by the hunt, and a meet was arranged 
to do him honor. A good deal had been heard of the 
General's horsemanship, and people were curious to see 
how he would follow the hounds. A severe frost prevented 
the meeting, and the General missed what would have been 
the most brilliant turnout of the season. He attended one 
hunt, however — the one that took place the day of his 
arrival, and after witnessing the start rode around to the 
finish. As the route had been made by a bag, there was 
no trouble in being in at the death. The General had 
never taken part in a hunt — had, I believe, never seen 
one. In his earlier days hunting was not the fashion at 
home. He was amused and interested. One of his friends 
asked him how he would like a ride across the country. 
"Well," he said, "I would not care to jump all those 
ditches and fences, but I suppose if I was in the hunt I 
could not resist the temptation. When I was younger I 
used to go out of my way for the purpose of finding a bit 
of a wall or fence, merely for the pleasure of jumping it. 
I do not know how it would be now, crossing the country. 
I suppose I would go with the rest." He was interested 
in the intelligence shown by the horses, who, before leajD- 
ing a fence, would look over and see what was beyond. I 



AROUND THE WORLD, 503 

think the General would have imitated Squire Western, 
and followed the cry, had he been well mounted. As it 
was he rode to the finish. The finish was an easy one, as 
the fox, when freed from his bag, instead of making tracks 
for the Pyrenees, as it would have been wise for him to 
have done, quietly slipped into a hole, and waited for the 
hounds to drag him out. I suj^pose the animal had become 
disheartened with his bag treatment, and, not knowing the 
country, preferred to meet his fate in the fields rather than 
incur one equally as terrible in the hills. 

I am afraid I have not seen a hunt at its best, even in 
Pan, but the meeting at Morles was worth seeing. The 
hour for the hunt was noon, but afterwards changed to one 
o'clock, so as to allow the sun full play upon the frosty 
ground. In the morning, as I walked around the castle, 
the ground was hard and resonant. I took council with 
my Swiss mentor. " Would there be a hunt or not ? " I 
found that my friend had great confidence in Lord Howth, 
and if his lordship had fixed on a hunt, it was pretty sure 
to come off. Then he had private information. It is due 
to my Swiss friend to say that his ideas of fox-hunting 
were hazy, and that he believed that most Englishmen 
carried foxes with them as part of their retinue, and that 
all that his lordship had to do, in an emergency, was to 
hand a fox out of his saddle-bags, and throw it among the 
hounds. At noon we started for the meet. It was very 
cold, and a keen wind came down from the Pyrenees. On 
our way out the question always was, "Would there be a 
hunt ? " The attendance was quite large, but not so large 
as it would have been had the ground been free from frost. 
The colony, American and English, was well represented, 
and it seemed as if the meet was composed of Saxons, as 
all spoke English. A carriage, containing four French 
army ofiicers, was among the first to come ; but the ofiicers 



504 GRANT'S TOUR 

took 110 part. The meet was about four miles from Pau, 
under an avenue of overhanging trees, forming a Gothic 
arch over our heads. There were carriages, coupes — 
groups constantly arriving and forming — ladies in riding- 
habit, with their full, clear, bonny English faces reddening 
in the cold, keen air ; gentlemen of the hunt in scarlet, 
and gentlemen guests of the hunt in brown Melton. The 
question whether the hounds will go is debated in cheery 
fashion as we walk up and down the road and look out 
over the low, rough fields, tipped with tufts of snow. The 
air is clear, as you can see by following the honeycomb 
ridges of the mountains, and tracing the varying forms of 
the rocks. Now the excitement increases as we hear the 
baying of the dogs, and in a few moments two scarlet-decked 
huntsmen come riding, surrounded by the hounds. One 
of the huntsmen rides ahead to lead the way, and another 
remains in the rear to watch for straggling hounds, and 
see that no Towser or Ponto goes off on a little fox-catching 
or sheep-stealing expedition of his own. The hounds are 
eager for the start, and sniff every token of animal life, an 
uneasy, restless, moving mass, held under complete control 
by the huntsman, who addresses them in a dialect of his 
own, which I could not understand. But it was effective, 
and as he was always addressing them, I suj^pose he found 
it necessary to preserve discipline. 

Lord Howth rides up in a canter, wearing a scarlet 
coat, and everybody seems pleased to welcome his frank, 
open face. His lordship looks at the sky and the ground 
anxiously, and is not sure whether it will be worth while 
making the run. Then, leaping over a ditch into a 
ploughed field, he is followed by the hounds and two or 
three of the huntsmen, who ride about and study the 
ground in a deprecating way, while the dogs run hither 
and thither, snifiing at every twig and stone, eager to be 



AROUND THE WORLD. 505 

away, and the huntsman always calling and commanding, 
just as if he were John Kelly addressing a Tammany con- 
vention. In the meantime, we gather on the road and 
watch the sky and ground. Some of our party are well 
mounted, and their horses, trained to the chase, are impa- 
tient for the horn. 

We do not wait long, for in a few minutes Lord Howth 
returns, riding rapidly over the field, crosses the road and 
enters another field. In a moment the hounds are after 
him, the scent is found, and with tails in air, noses on the 
ground, every nerve attuned, panting, straining, eager, the 
whole pack is away. Huntsmen brace themselves in their 
saddles and are off. Over a ditch into a rough field. The 
hounds straining and eager — every one pressing to the 
front. Over a hedge covered by shrubbery. The hounds 
dart, as it were, like arrows out of a bow, and the horsemen 
after. Some look about for an easy place, a gap or a gate, 
but the most of them go plunging straight after the hounds, 
his lordship well to the front. One horse misses his foot- 
ing, throws his rider and makes down the road for his 
stable, having no interest in the hounds. Happily, the 
rider — a lady — is not injured. The horse is caught, and 
she returns to the chase. Now let our friends get to the 
front as well as they can — the front is a half-mile away, 
the hounds in full cry. Hunting is like human life, and 
has a great deal of human nature in it. Some tumble, 
some fall in a ditch, some are thrown — the hunt keeps on, 
for the race must be run and the goal must be won, and if 
we fall or are passed it is destiny. 

Away over field and slope, over ground torn by the 
plough, over ditches, over pasture lands where homely 
cattle are feeding and wondering what means this rude in- 
vasion ; past cottages, all the household assembled, the men 
wearing their blue Basque bonnets, something like what 



506 GRANT'S TOUR 

you see worn in Scotland, traversing stony liigliways; 
again over ditches, into a morass, in which we phmge and 
flounder and rush out as best we can. How keen the air, 
and how much better this joyous communion with nature 
than cottoned away in the close nursery of civilization, 
every faculty alive and bracing and the spirit of emulation 
in every breast ! Who shall be first ? Which of us will 
jump the most fences? Who shall carry off the brush? 
How like the great hunt in which we are all engaged, and 
which we call existence ! And what wins in the world wins 
in the hunting field — nerve, coolness, resolution, honest, 
steady riding to the goal, turning neither to the right nor 
to the left, but following the path of duty wherever it leads, 
whether into smooth ways or rough fields or over venture- 
some walls. 

Well, we ride three-quarters of an hour, perhaps an 
hour, and the cry ahead tells us that the hunt is over. 
Reynard did not take to the hills when his chance was 
given him, but sought a covert, away from the cold, per- 
haps, not dreaming that his freedom was really his doom, 
and the hounds have found him. And all that remains of 
poor Keynard is his brush, which Lord Howth jDresents to 
the English lady who was in at the death, and we all 
straggle home. The hunt has not been a long one, but, 
considering that we expected none at all, everybody feels 
an agreeable disappointment, and we come back into the 
town feeling that the day has not been altogether an idle 
one. 

The advantages of Pau, as far as I can sum them ujd, are 
the air and the scenery. You are in the centre of a beau- 
tiful region, and if your eye craves beauty here it will 
always be satisfied. To men of science there is an endless 
field of study in the geology of the Pyrenees. Invalids are 
within an easy range of famous baths and springs. Lou 



AROUND THE WORLD. 507 

can run down to Biarritz in three hours, and bathe in the 
sea. If you like walking, the roads are fine, and there is 
unvarying interest in the scenery, the manners and customs 
of the people. If you are adventurous, you may climb 
Balaturs, and see on one side the sunny plains of France, 
on the other the stripped and desolate hills of Aragon. If 
you are devout, and believe in manifestations of holy pres- 
ences on earth, you are within an hour of the most famous 
sanctuary in the world, even the shrine of Our Lady of 
Lourdes. In winter the weather is, as a general thing, dry, 
and the sun is sure to be about some part of the day. 
Medical men speak highly of Pau, but that evidence you 
must take with all caution, as medical men speak highly 
of every place I have ever known, except the Jersey flats. 
Still there is a good deal of sound evidence in favor of Pan. 
The soil is gravelly, and absorbs rain. The air is influenced 
by the Pyrenees, by the sea breezes, by the odors of the 
pine forests that cover the Landes. It is a dry air, and you 
are told that for weeks the leaves are motionless, so still 
is the atmosphere. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

GENERAL GRANT IN LISBON INTERVIEW WITH THE KING 

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE LISBON AS IT IS THE 

KING AS A SHAKESPEARIAN SCHOLAR BEAUTIFUL 

CINTRA THE CONTRAST BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND 

SPAIN THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT HOW BULL-FIGHTS 

ARE CONDUCTED IN PORTUGAL GENTLER ASPECTS OF 

THE SHOW. 

From Pau the travellers went to Lisbon, where they 
arrived on the last day of October. From this point, one 
of the party writes as follows : — Lisbon is a city built as 
it were on billows. The view from the river is very beau- 
tiful, recalling, in some degree, the view of Constantinople 
from the Bosphorous. The skies were gracious to our 
coming, and the air was as warm as a Virginia spring. 
There are so many stories about the foundation of Lisbon 
that the reader may take his choice. Ulysses is said to 
have made this one of his wanderings, and to have, in the 
words of Camoens, bidden " the eternal walls of Lisbon 
rise." There is a legend to the effect that Lisus, friend of 
Bacchus, was the founder, while other authorities say that 
it was the great-grandson of Noah, a person named Elisa, 
and the date they fix at two thousand one hundred and 
fifty years before Christ, or two hundred and seventy-eight 
years after the Deluge. The value of these legends is that 
there is no way of contradicting them, and one is about as 
good as another. I find it easier to believe the narratives 
I hear, and to fancy, as I walk up and down the steep, de- 
scending streets, that I am really in classical society. It 
is due to Elisa's claim to say that the time is fixed, and that 

508 



AROUND THE WORLD: 



509 



it was only four thousand and twenty-eiglit years ago. As 
we come into more attainable chronology, we find that Lis- 
bon was once a part of the Carthagenian dominions, and 
supported Hannibal. That astute commander had such 
hard luck in the world, that I have always been disposed 
to take his part, and Lisbon has a friendlier look now that 




ROMAN "WATCH-TOWEK OVERLOOKING LISBON. 

I know she stood by the Carthagenian captain against the 
power of Rome. It shows a lack of enterprise in the Lis- 
bon people that they have not found out the house in which 
Hannibal lived, or the trees under which he prayed, as all 
well-regulated towns in the United States do concerning 
Washington. There was no trace of Hannibal in Lisbon. 
The people seemed to be under the impression that the only 
great commanders who had ever been in Lisbon were Don 
Sebastian and the Duke of Wellington. They show the 



510 



GRANT'S TOUR 



very quay from which Don Sebastian embarked on the 
journey from which he has not returned, and the relics of 
Torres Vedras are in the suburbs, where the Duke began 
his sentimental errand of delivering Europe. 

Julius Csesar was kind to Lisbon, although the people 
— such is the ingratitude of modern times — seem to have 
forgotten it. Then came the Goths, who took it from the 
Komans and plundered it. The Goths, who seem to have 
been an uninteresting people, well deserving their fate, 
were driven out by the Moors more than eleven centuries 




LISBON. 



ago. The Moors never had much peace in Lisbon, and the 
chronicles of their reign are chronicles of assaults and 
counter-assaults — now Christian ahead and now the in- 
fidel — for centuries, so that real estate must have been as 
bad an investment during their day as in New York since 
the panic. But there came a prince of the house of Bur- 
gundy, about seven centuries ago, and he whipped the 
Moors in a pitched battle. The chief incident in this 
transaction was the appearance of our Saviour to the king 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



511 



on the morning of the battle, with a bright halo around 
his head, who assured the prince of victory. This sov- 
ereign is called the founder of the present kingdom of 
Portugal. He was known as Alfonso the Conqueror, and 
his remains are in a magnificent sepulchre at Coimbra. He 
flourished about the time of Henry II., who had the fatal 
quarrel with Becket. For two centuries Lisbon remained 
under her kings, until a king of Castile came over and 
burned a greater part of the town. It seems that there 
was a woman in the case, for Camoens tells of the beau- 




THE SPANISH AEMADA. 



teous Leonore, who was torn from her husband's widowed 
arms against the law and commandments. In 1497 Vasco 
de Gama sailed from Lisbon on the expedition which was 
to result in the discovery of the passage around the Cape 
of Good Hope to the Indies.. This was the beginning of 
a career of commercial splendor. For two centuries the 
wealth of the Indies was poured into her coffers. In 1580 
Philip II. of Spain took the town and annexed Portugal. 
During his reign the Spanish Armada was fitted out at 



512 GRANT'S TOUR 

Lisbon and sailed from here to conquer England. If 
Philip had made Lisbon his capital, and transferred the 
government of the whole peninsula hither, there is little 
doubt that Spain and Portugal would be one country still, 
with advantage to the two nations and the world. Lisbon 
is the natural site for such a capital. But Philip was in- 
fatuated with his monkish career at the Escurial, and his 
successors did not think much of Portugal except as a good 
province to tax, and so in 1640 the people arose one De- 
cember night and drove the Spaniards out, and from that 
time it has been in the hands of its own people. 

The most memorable event in Lisbon history was the 
earthquake of 1755, traces of which you can see to-day, 
and about which people converse — as the people of Chicago 
do about their fire — as though it happened the other day. 
It was on the feast of All Saints, in the early morning, 
when Christians were at mass praying for the repose of the 
souls of the dear ones gone. A noise was heard as of 
thunder, the buildings tossed like a ship on the billows, 
darkness fell upon the earth, and, as all the churches were 
crowded, hundreds were crushed to death at the altar's 
foot by the falling timbers. Nearly every church in the 
town was destroyed. . Then the people rushed to the water- 
side and to the higher places of the town, mainly to a 
church called St. Catherine's. Surely there was safety on 
the high places and on the banks of the river. But a 
second shock came. St. Catherine's church fell with a 
crash. The river became a sea, and there rolled over the 
banks a mountainous wave, sweeping the lower streets and 
all that lived on them, and the earth opened and the ships 
went down, likewise a magnificent marble quay, on which 
people had assembled — all went down, down into the 
depths, and when the wave receded it was found that all 
had been swallowed up. The river rose and fell three 



AROUND THE WORLD. 513 

fatlioms in an instant. The ships' anchors were thrown up 
to the surface. A third shock came, and vessels that had 
been riding in seven fathoms of water were stranded. Then 
a fire broke out and raged for six days. Never since cities 
were founded was any one so sorely smitten as beautiful 
Lisbon. 

The best authorities say that the loss to Lisbon was 
$300,000,000 in money. Of 20,000 houses only 3,000 
remained. Thirty thousand lives were lost. Then the 
robbers came and plundered the ruined town^ and it was 
given over to plunder until the resolute Marquis Pombal, 
ancestor of the recently deceased Soldanba, came, and, 
building gallows in various parts of Lisbon, hanged every 
one who could not give a clear exj)lanation of how he came 
by his property. In all, 350 were hanged. It seems that 
the earthquake which destroyed Lisbon was felt all over 
the world — as far north as the Orkney Islands and 
in Jamaica. The culmination was in Lisbon. But the 
people, under the lead of the brave Pombal and the King 
Joseph I. — who is called " The Most Faithful," — rebuilt 
the town, and you see how well that work was done. You 
see rows of houses that remind you of Paris, fine squares 
and a newness in certain quarters, as though it was the 
rebuilt section of Boston. One hundred and twenty-three 
years have j)assed since the earthquake, but no event is 
so well known. People show you where the quay stood 
which sank into the depths. I strolled over it this morn- 
ing with General Grant and saw the barefooted fishwomen 
hawking fish. They point out the magnificent improve- 
ments carried out by Pombal. They show you with jDride 
the equestrian statue of Don Jose, erected by a grateful 
people in commemoration of his services in that awful time. 
And if you climb u}^ to the fort for a view of the lovely 
scenery which encloses Lisbon, the first object pointed out 



514 GRANT'S TOUR 

is the ruin of the Carmelite church destroyed in the earth- 
quake. 

The King of Portugal, Don Luis I., is a young man in 
the fortieth year of his age, second cousin to the Prince of 
Wales, who is three years his junior, and between whom 
there is a marked resemblance. The Queen is the youngest 
sister of the present King of Italy. The King's father is 
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, cousin of the late Prince 
Consort of England. His first wife, the mother of the 
King, died many years since. His second wife, now liv- 
ing, is an American lady from Boston, named Henzler, and 
is called the Countess d'Edla. One of the King's sisters 
is wife to the second son of the King of Saxony, the other, 
wife to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, 
whose election to the throne of Spain by Prim was one of 
the causes of the war between Germany and France. In 
the way of revenue the King is paid $405,000 a year and 
the Queen $66,600. The eldest son, heir-apparent, is now 
fifteen years old, and $22,200 is his salary. The second 
son is only thirteen years old, and receives $11,100. The 
King's father is paid $111,000 annually, and his brother, 
a young man of thirty-one, is general in the army and has 
a salary of $17,750 per annum. . When you add the King's 
great aunt, an old lady of seventy-seven, who is paid $22,- 
200, you have the whole royal family, with their incomes, 
amounting in the aggregate to something over $650,000 a 
year. 

The King, on learning that General Grant had arrived 
in Lisbon, came to the city to meet him. There was an 
audience at the j)alace, the General and his wife meeting 
the King and Queen. The King, after greeting the Gen- 
eral in the splendid audience chamber, led him into an 
inner apartment, away from the Ministers and courtiers 
who were in attendance on the ceremony. They had a 



AROUND THE WORLD. 515 

long conversation relative to Portugal and the United 
States, the resources of the two countries, and the means, 
if means were possible, to promote the commercial relations 
between Portugal and America. Portugal was, above all 
things, a commercial nation, and her history was a history 
of discovery and extending civilization. Lisbon, in a direct 
line, was the nearest port for ships leaving New York. It 
was on the lines of latitude south of the icebergs, and a 
pleasanter part of the ocean than the routes to Liverpool. 
There was a harbor large enough to hold any fleet, and the 
King believed that, when the new lines of railway through 
Portugal and Spain were built, the route would be seven- 
teen miles shorter than over the present many-winding 
way of the Salamanca road. The advantages of such a 
port as Lisbon would be many for travellers, and the King 
had no doubt that markets for American produce and 
manufactures would be found in the countries around Lis- 
bon. The King had been a naval officer, and the conver- 
sation ran into ships of war and naval warfare. There 
were other meetings between the King and the General. 
The day after the palace reception was the King's birth- 
day, and there was a gala-night at the opera. The King 
and royal family came in state, and during the interludes 
the General had a long conversation with His Majesty. 
The next evening there was a dinner at the palace in honor 
of the General, the Ministry and the leading men of the 
court in attendance. The King conversed with the Gen- 
eral about other themes — wanted him to go with him and 
shoot. It seems the King is a famous shot. But the Gen- 
eral's arrangements left him no time to accept this cour- 
tesy. 

It seems the King is a literary man, and having trans- 
lated " Hamlet " into Portuguese, the conversation ran into 
literary themes. The King said he hoped to finish Shake- 



516 GRANT'S TOUR 

speare, and make a complete translation into Portuguese. 
He had finished four of the plays — " Hamlet," " Mer- 
chant of Venice," " Macbeth," and " Eichard III." " Othel- 
lo " was under way, and already he had finished the first 
act. The question was asked as to whether His Majesty 
did not find it difficult to translate such scenes as that be- 
tween Hamlet and the grave-diggers — almost dialect con- 
versations — into Portuguese. The King said he thought 
this was, perhaps, the easiest part. It was more difficult 
to render into Portuguese the grander portions, where the 
poetry attained its highest flight. "The Merchant of 
Venice " he liked extremely, and " Richard III." was, in 
some respects, as fine as any of Shakespeare's inlays. 
"What jDolitical insight !" said the King; "what insight 
into motives and character this play contains ! " The King 
asked the General to accept a copy of "Hamlet," which 
His Majesty presented with an autograph inscription. As 
the time came to leave, the King asked the General to 
allow him to mark his appreciation of the honor the Gen- 
eral had done Portugal by visiting it by giving him the 
grand Cross of the Tower and Sword. The General said 
he was very much obliged, but that, having been President 
of the United States, and there being a law against officials 
accepting decorations, he would rather, although no longer 
in office, respect a law which it had been his duty to ad- 
minister. At the same time, he appreciated the compli- 
ment implied in the King's offer, and would always remem- 
ber it with gratitude. 

Don Fernando, the King Consort and father to the King, 
was also exceedingly courteous to tho General. His Maj- 
esty is sixty years of age, and is a tall, stately gentleman, 
resembling somewhat his relative, Leopold I. of Belgium. 
Don Fernando is one of the Coburg house of princes, who 
are sjpreading over Europe. He belongs to the Catholic 



AROUND THE WORLD. 517 

wing of tlie family — these great houses having Catholic 
and Protestant wings, to suit the exigencies of royal alli- 
ances. He came to Portugal forty-two years ago as the 
husband of Dona Maria II., Queen of Portugal, and sister 
to Dom Pedro of Brazil. Dona Maria died in 1853, and 
Don Fernando became regent until his first son, Dom Pedro 
v., was of age. Dom Pedro reigned six years, and was 
succeeded by his brother, the present sovereign. Ameri- 
cans will be pleased to know that His Majesty, on his 
second marriage, selected a Boston lady. The marriage is 
morganatic — that is to say, the Church blesses it, but the 
lady not being royal, the law will not recognize her as 
Queen. Countess d'Edla, as she is called, is much respected 
in Lisbon. When the General called, she escorted him 
through the various treasure-rooms of the palace, and 
seemed delighted to meet one of her countrymen, and espe- 
cially one who had ruled her country. Countess d'Edla 
seems to have had a romantic career. She studied music, 
and came to sing in Lisbon. Here Don Fernando ' made 
an acquaintance which ripened in love, and in 1869 she 
became his wife. Don Fernando, like his son, the King, 
is an accomplished man, skilled in languages and literature, 
with an especial interest in America. He talked to Gen- 
eral Grant about California and the Pacific coast, and ex- 
pressed a desire to visit it. His Majesty has a curious and 
wonderful collection of pictures, bric-a-brac, old armor, and 
old furniture — one of the most curious and interesting 
houses in Europe. He is fond of painting, and showed us 
with pride some of his painting on 2)orcelain. 

Finally, Don Fernando gave us a pressing invitation to 
visit his palace at Cintra. A visit to Cintra was down in 
our programme, but the King's invitation put the palace 
at our disposal, a privilege rarely given. Cintra is about 
fifteen miles from Lisbon, and we were compelled to go 



518 GRANT'S TOUR 

early in the morning. Our party included the General 
and his wife, Mr. Dimon, our Consul ; Viscount Pernes 
and Mr. Cunha de Maier, formerly Portuguese Consul- 
General in the United States, and author of a history of 
the United States in Portuguese. Mr. Moran, our Minis- 
ter, was unable to join us on account of indisposition. The 
drive was attractive, through a rolling, picturesque country, 
with cool breezes coming in from the sea that made over- 
coats pleasant. Cintra is one of the famous sj^ots in Europe, 
but when one speaks of it he turns almost by instinct to 
" Childe Harold." You will find Byron's majestic stanzas 
describing Cintra in the first canto : — 

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned, 
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, 

The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned, 
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must creep, 

The tender azure of the unruffled deep, 

The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, 

The torrents that from cliff to valley leap. 
The vine on high, the willow branch below, 
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. 

Then slowly climb the many-winding way, 

And frequent turn to linger as you go. 
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, 

And rest ye at " Our Lady's House of Woe," 
Where frugal monks their little relics show, 

And sundry legends to the stranger tell ; 
Here impious men have punished been, and lo ! 

Deep in yon cave Honorias long did dwell. 

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell. 

Nearly seventy years have passed since Byron visited 
Cintra, and the picture is as perfect now as when drawn. 
There was some difficulty in finding the cork-trees, and 
General Grant began to be skeptical as to their existence, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 519 

and was thinking of offering a reward to Mr. Dimon to 
find one. But the Consul redeemed Byron's veracity as a 
painter of scenery by bringing us to a small cork grove on 
the side of the mountain. Many changes have taken place 
since Byron was here. The "toppling convent" was seized 
by the government, and in time became the property of 
Don Fernando, and at a vast expense he has rebuilt it into 
a chateau or palace, one of the most beautiful in the world. 
The " horrid crags " are traversed by good roads, and we 
ride upon our donkeys as easily as we could ride up Fifth 
Avenue. The mountain moss and the sunken glens have 
all been covered with a rich vegetation, notably of the 
camelia, which is rarely seen in this latitude, but which 
His Majesty has made to grow in profusion. Our Lady's 
House of Woe is the palace of a prince, and as we ride 
under the overarching door-way attendants in royal livery 
are waiting. The house is in Norman-Gothic style, and 
the rooms are what you might see in other palaces. There 
is a small chapel of rare beauty, with exquisite carvings 
in marble and jasj)er illustrating the passion of our Lord. 
The beauty of Cintra is seen in its fulness as you stand on 
the lofty turrets. It is built on the summit of a rocky 
hill three thousand feet high. The descent on one side to 
the village is a triumph of exquisite gardening. On the 
other side the descent is almost precipitous. You look 
from the giddy height at the trees and the tumbled masses 
of rock, tossed and heaped in some volcanic age. You see 
the landscape rise and swell in undulating beauty, and the 
lengthening shadows rippling over it. Far off are the 
lines of Torres Vedras, built by Wellington's armies to 
defend Lisbon from the French. Beyond is the sea, 
gleaming like amber and pearl. It was over that sea that 
Vasco de Gama sailed, and from this lofty summit King- 
Manuel watched his coming, and in time saw him come, 



520 



GRANT'S TOUR 



bringing tribute and empire from the Indies. You can see, 
if you look carefully, the outlines of Mafra palace, built to 
rival the Escurial. You see the Tagus spreading out to 
the sea, forcing its way through forests and hills and val- 
leys until it falls into the ocean's arms. Lisbon lies under 
the Monsanto hills, but the view sweeps far beyond Lisbon 
until it is lost in the ocean. There was a fascination in 




THE VICINITY OF CINTRA, AS SEEN FROM A LOFTY TOWER. 

this view that made us loth to leave it, and for a long time 
we lingered, watching every tint and shadow of the picture 
under the changing sunlight. It is indeed " the glorious 
Eden " of Byron's verse. 

There was a long ride through the gardens and the 
woods on our donkeys until we came to Montserrat. It 
was here that Beckford, author of " Yathek," whom Byron 



AROUND THE WORLD. 521 

calls "England's wealthiest son," built a cliateaii. The 
view is almost as beautiful as that from the towers of Don 
Fernando's palace. Beckford's house came into the pos- 
session of a wealthy English merchant named Cook, but 
upon whom the King has lately conferred the title of Vis- 
count of Montserrat. Mr. Cook has spent a vast sum of 
money upon the house and grounds. The house is in the 
Oriental style — a long parallelogram in the centre, with 
two oval wings, and all surrounded with columns and bal- 
conies from which you can look out upon the valley, the 
plains that sweep towards the sea, the sea alone breaking 
the horizon. The grounds, however, are among the finest 
in Europe for the value and rarity of the plants, and the 
care with which all is preserved. Notwithstanding its 
beauty Mr. Cook only spends two months of the year at 
Montserrat. His other months are spent in England man- 
aging his affairs. There is an old royal j)alace to be seen, 
which was the Alhambra of the Moors in their day of 
triumph. The kings of Portugal lived here before the 
discovery of America, and one of the legends goes back 
to a century before that time. The palace is a large, 
straggling building, with many chambers, and as it is no 
longer used as a royal residence, the General was curious 
to know why it could not be rented as a summer boarding- 
house, and made to contribute to the revenues of the King. 
In its day it was, no doubt, a pleasant home; but with the 
three or four vast palaces in Lisbon and its suburbs, jDal- 
aces with modern comforts, the old Moorish castle can well 
be kept as one of the monuments of the nation. 

We walked and drove around Cintra village. General 
Grant was so charmed with the place that he regretted he 
could not remain longer. There was a royal engagement 
bidding him to Lisbon. So we dined at Victor's Hotel, 
and as the night shadows came down bundled into our 



522 GRANT'S TOUR - 

carriages for the long drive home. The air was clear, the 
skies were bright, and it was pleasant to bound over the 
stony roads and watch the brown fields ; to pass the tav^- 
erns, where peasants were laughing and chatting over their 
wine ; to roll into the city and feel the breezes from the 
river as we came to Our hotel. We had made a long jour- 
ney, and the hills we climbed made it fatiguing. But no 
one spoke of fatigue, only of the rapturous beauty which 
we had seen. Cintra itself is worth a long journey to see, 
and to be remembered, when seen, as a dream of Paradise. 
Contrasting Portugal with Spain, one of the travellers 
says : — The contrasts between the Portuguese arid Spanish 
character are more marked than would be supposed. And 
yet it is difficult to select a type of the Spanish character 
as described in the romances. There is no such thing as 
Spain. The differences between the provinces of Spain, in 
language, character, tradition, origin, are greater than be- 
tween the Spaniard and the Englishman. Spain is com- 
posed of various provinces — Biscay, Galicia, Navarre, the 
Asturias, Leon, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Mur- 
cia, La Mancha, Estramadura, and Andalusia. The Basque 
is a type totally distinct from every other in Spain — dis- 
tinct in every sense. The difference between the blue- 
eyed, industrious Catalan, and the dark-eyed, luxurious, 
sun-craving Andalusian is almost as great. The effect of 
a central government and one language has been to break 
down most of the barriers and bring the people together 
under the generic name of Spanish. But although for 
centuries this process has been at work, the differences are 
great. The Basque does not assimilate, and a very ordin- 
ary knowledge of Spanish types and character would 
enable you to designate, in a body like the Cortes, for 
instance, the province from which most of the members 
spring. 



AROUND THE WORLD: 523 

In reference to the freedom of the two countries, he 
says : — There is every hope that the Federal Kepublic 
will revive. Even the demagogues will see that the idea 
of weakening the body because you strengthen the limbs, 
of disintegrating a State by reviving its provinces and giv- 
ing each section a strong government, is absurd. As to 
the differences of character between the Spanish and Port- 
uguese, they are not nearly so great as between Biscay and 
Andalusi-a. At the same time, there are differences which 
you can attribute partly to the government and partly to 
the communication with the outside world through her sea- 
ports. No influence is so decisive and salutary. Spain, so 
far as the outer world is concerned, is hidden by a stone 
wall. She has the Mediterranean, but the breezes that 
come from the Mediterranean are enervating compared with 
what come from the Atlantic. Cervantes speaks of the 
Portuguese as a thick-witted, dull people, and in the com- 
edies you find frequent jokes at their expense, as in our 
comedies you find jokes about the Yankee and the Cana- 
dian. But it seemed to me, coming to Portugal from 
Spain, that a freer air was blowing. The manners of the 
people were gentler. That reserve which never leaves the 
Spaniard — their conscious, published pride — had van- 
ished. There is a higher standard in Portugal. The 
p1:-ess has complete freedom, and the editors have pride in 
their work. Take the visit of General Grant to the Pen- 
insula as an example. Few events in Spain have ajDpar- 
ently attracted more attention than the coming of the ex- 
President. Yet the Spanish journals seem not to have 
heard of his presence, or they dismissed his movements in 
a paragraph announcing his arrival in a town, as a general 
thing, about the time he was leaving. In Portugal, the 
journals snuffed his coming, and published wood engrav- 
ings and biographies. The wood engravings might have 



524 GRANT'S TOUR 

done for many other persons, but the biographies were as 
accurate as such accounts generally are. Here in Lisbon 
we came upon that beneficent influence of modern journal- 
ism — the reporter. I don't think a Spanish newspaper ever 
heard of a reporter. As soon as the General arrived in 
Lisbon, the reporters appeared and took possession of the 
approaches to the hotel and opened relations with the serv- 
ants, and every morning we had columns of choice infor- 
mation in the good, old-fashioned, homely style. Our re- 
porter was not quite up to the New York style, which 
heaven forbid, and did not interview the General as to what 
he thought of the world. We cannot expect everything in 
a strange land. But he did well, and told Lisbon how the 
General looked, and when he walked, and what he had for 
breakfast, and how he liked his eggs cooked, and the hour 
of his rising and retiring — all in the old-fashioned style. 
In Madrid, if a newspaper neglected to say in any issue, 
" God save the King and guard His Majesty many years," 
it would be constructive disloyalty, and would incur sup- 
pression. In Lisbon, there are journals of the Miguelite 
faith, who will not speak of the King except as a private 
prince, and who write of Don Miguel as though he were 
on the throne. Such an idea as suppressing these journals 
never occurs to the authorities. They do as they please, 
and do no harm. 

A correspondent who accompanied the party thinks 
that in morals Portugal has a higher standard than Sjoain, 
and after referring to the cruelty of the Spanish as demon- 
strated in the massacre of the Jews in 1506, he j)asses on 
to speak of the difference between the taste displayed by 
the nations in the manner in which they conduct their 
national game — the bull-fight. He says: — I have been 
twice to a bull-fight in Spain. The first time I went to 
see the men kill the bulls. The second time I was drawn 



AROUND THE WORLD. 525 

by tlie liope that I might see the bulls kill the men. My 
experiences at a bull-fight were like those of Lord Byron, 
The whole spectacle was so brutal that I could not remain. 
Looked at as a question of mere^ liumanity, the Spaniard 
will demonstrate that there is no more cruelty in slaying a 
bullthan in slaying a foe. He will point out that the bull 
has no higher mission in God's kingdom than to reduce 
himself to beef, and that since that is his destiny, why is 
it more cruel to kill him in one way than another ? Eng- 
lishmen kill foxes and give them to the hounds. Their 
sj)ort is cruelty unredeemed. The Spaniard kills bulls and 
gives them for food. Their sport is useful, and serves a 
necessary purpose — the giving of food to the hungry. 

What revolts you in the bull-fight is the absence of all 
hope for the bull. That wounds our sense of fair play. 
The fox may find a hole, the plover may take wing, the 
antelope has the fields and forests ; in our sports we do not 
take an undue advantage. But for the bull there is no 
hope. The tragedy always ends in death. Let him fight 
never so well, his valor only stimulates the excitement of 
the crowd. He has no possible hope. If he is wary or 
sluggish, and will not fight, the dogs are put upon him, or 
fire-crackers are exploded in his skin. If he is fierce, and 
so brave that the swordsman cannot do his ofiice, then they 
creep behind and hamstring him, and put him to death in 
a cowardly fashion. The horses are killed in wantonness, 
and the more horses the bull gores and rends and tears to 
pieces, the more enthusiasm in the crowd. If even the 
horse had a chance ! But his eyes are bound. He is gen- 
erally so old and lame that his work is done. He has 
served his master in every way — pulling, hauling, starv- 
ing, submitting to blows — and now, when the whip and 
spur have no control of his worn-out constitution, he is 
doomed to the bull-goring. The whole display is the re- 



526 GRANT'S TOUR 

finement of cruelty. There were all kind of inducements 
held out to the General to visit the bull-fight. But he 
could not be persuaded. 

A bull-fight is described as follows: — The arena is like 
the old Koman Coliseum, a circle of benches and boxes 
under the open sky. There is the multitude — ten thou- 
sand sometimes rising tier on tier — comprising the wealth, 
the beauty, the nobility, the poverty of the town. Perfect 
freedom reigns, and the aspect of such a laughing, chaffing, 
smiling multitude in high glee is imposing. The bull- 
fighters have national fame, and a good swordsman is as 
much esteemed as a great actor, and as eagerly looked for 
as Mr. Booth on our tragic stage. It used to be said in 
England that every duke found it necessary to have a 
ballet-dancer as a mistress to sustain the dignity of his 
rank. In Spain they used to say that every duchess had 
a bull-fighter for a lover. You must not believe all that 
is said about dukes and duchesses, but if you go to the gal- 
lery, you see that Goya paints a famous duchess attending 
a rendezvous with two bull-fighters at the same time. The 
picture is so famous that it is repeated in tapestry. But 
this belongs to the era when prize-fighters were the com- 
panions of noblemen, and in England and Spain public 
taste has changed. At the same time the favorite swords- 
man, if the favorite appears at the fight, is always wel- 
comed. He comes in the rear of a grand procession. 
Horsemen in picturesque dresses, attendants in orange and 
crimson cloaks, the swordsmen in the rear — lithe, active 
men, all eyes and nerves, in closely-fitting, brocaded 
clothes, fantastically shaped; their hair twisted into a 
small cue ; clean-limbed, active, their lives at their sword's 
point, for they must in the end face and kill the bull. As 
they march around the ring there are acclamations, the 
liveliest clatter of comment and gossip, speculations on the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 527 

bulls, on the performers, ever increasing interest until the 
tragedy begins. 

The trumpet sounds. All unnecessary people, musi- 
cians and so on, depart. The arena is cleared. The horse- 
men stand at the gate, lances in hand. They are in no 
danger beyond a fall or a bruise, for they are in leather 
and iron armor. The cloak-bearers and swordsmen take 
their places near the barriers, to jump over in case of 
emergency. The door opens and out of the dark pen the 
bull comes bounding into the light, amid the buzz and 
roar of the multitude. If he is a good bull, he will prob- 
ably justify the description in the Moorish ballad of the 
famous bull-fight of Sanzul : / 

Dark is his hide on either side, but the blood within doth boil, 
And the dun hide glows as if on fire as he paws to the turmoil. 
His eyes are jet, and they are set in crystal rings of snow, 
But now they stare with one red glare of brass upon the foe. 
Upon the forehead of the bull the horns stand close and near; 
From out the broad and wrinkled skull like daggers they appear. 
His neck is massy, like the trunk of some old knotted tree, 
Whereon the monster's shagged mane, like billows curled, ye see. 
His legs are short, his hams are thick, his hocks are black as night ; 
Like a strong flail he holds his tail, in fierceness of his might; 
Like something molten out of iron or hewn forth from the rock. 

If the bull is sluggish or indifferent, the horsemen sj)ear 
him and put themselves in his way that he may turn and 
gore the horses. The more horses he kills the more enter- 
tainment. This scene over, and it is too cruel and offensive 
to be described, the horses are dragged out, the horsemen 
retire and the bull encounters another enemy. Darts are 
thrown into his neck — darts with ribbons or decorations. 
There is some danger in this. The performer stands in 
the middle of the ring with the dart in either hand. As 
the bull rushes towards him and bends his head to strike, 

31 



528 GRANT'S TOUR 

the performer tlirows the darts into the shoulder. The 
pain makes the poor beast jump and turn and seek else- 
where his tormentor. If he does not turn, or if the darts 
should fail, then the j)erformer has an interesting problem. 
He must escape the bull. Sometimes he takes the horns 
and leaps over him. Generally he makes for the barrier 
and leaps over it. Occasionally the bull leaps after, and 
the excitement reaches to fever heat. The crowd prod 
him with sticks and call him all kind of names. The per- 
former leaps back into the arena, and a gate is opened 
through which the bull is compelled to return to his doom. 
Panting, tortured, bleeding, dripping from the wounds 
of the horsemen and the darts, foaming, angry, pawing the 
earth in pain and rage, the bull comes back to the arena to 
die. This is the last act. The espada, the leading actor, the 
Hamlet of the company, comes out alone. He bows to the 
Mayor if he is in authority, to the King if in his box, and 
says in high sonorous fashion that for the glory of Spain 
and in the honor of this high company he will kill the 
bull. If he is a great actor, the crowd by this time is ex- 
ultant. He advances alone to the centre of the arena, his 
sword in his hand, gesturing and posturing and waving his 
sword and testing his arm, just as you see our Hamlets at 
home when they meet Laertes. This is the crisis of the 
play, the one thing which redeems the bull-fight. This 
slight, agile man, alone in presence of a tortured, angry 
bull. He awaits the onslaught, and if he is a skilled actor 
drives the sword into the animal's neck so that it dies at 
once. But as a general thing he makes several attemj^ts 
before succeeding, and in the event of failure he must also 
take to the barriers. Even then there is not much danger. 
For the moment the bull pursues he is set upon by a cloud 
of attendants, who throw cloaks in his face, decoying him 
this way or that, and leading him a crazy dance around the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 529 

ring until the espada is in position again ready for another 
trial. Sometimes, however, the bull is clear-minded and 
not to be deceived by cloaks, or the espada is not nimble 
enough, and the bull drives a horn into him and sends him 
over the barrier in lofty, passive fashion. This now and 
then happens. If the wound is fatal, the espada is carried 
to a small room, where there is a priest in waiting with the 
holy sacrament. And if he dies he dies in grace, while 
the multitude, maddened with enthusiasm over the show, 
scream for another bull. Such a thing as the killing of a 
performer does not often happen. The hope that one may 
be slain is a piquant sauce for the entertainment. 

Contrast the bull-ring in Spain with what it is in Por- 
tugal, and you will see more clearly what I meant when I 
called a'ttention to the more humane qualities of the Por- 
tuo-uese. The bull-rino; is as much of an institution here 
as in S]3ain. But all the conditions change. It is a comedy, 
not a tragedy ; sometimes a negro minstrel farce. The 
arena is the same ; the bulls are wild. On going into their 
pens, wooden balls are tied to their horns. Connoisseurs 
divide the bulls into classes. There is the wild, harum- 
scarum bull, which rushes at everything, and whom it re- 
quires only moderate skill to fight. There is the impetuous 
bull, quick to attack, but with sense enough to turn around 
and await the assault. There is the logical bull, which does 
not waste time on the cloaks. There is the bull which, in- 
stead of trying to toss the performer, chases him out of the 
ring by sheer running power. There is the timid bull, which 
runs away and gives a great deal of trouble, and the near- 
sighted bull, which is worse than none at all. Finally, there 
is the cunning bull, which has been in the ring before, and 
with whom there must be no trifling. 

There is quite as much parade in the Portuguese as in 
the Spanish bull-ring, but the purpose of the show is to 



530 GRANT'S TOUR 

fight the bull, and not slay him. The horsemen ride good 
horses, not abandoned beasts — horses trained to fight bulls, 
and not simjDly to be gored and torn. The foot j)erformers 
are of two classes — those who throw darts, and another 
class of lively, active, young men, who seize the bull by 
main force, and play antics over him. Sometimes colored 
gentlemen offer themselves as tossing material for the bull, 
and then the fun is screaming. The performers are quaintly 
dressed in costumes of past generations ; the dart-throwers' 
a natty costume, like Italian opera singers, short and em- 
broidered velvet jackets, and breeches gaudily tinted, white 
stockings, and red sashes. When the bull comes ^^awing 
and prancing into the arena, instead of iron- and leather- 
clad horsemen on broken-down omnibus horses to prod him 
with spears, the foot performers in Italian opera costumes, 
throw the darts into his shoulder. This is an exciting feat, 
but bulls have a way of lowering their heads and taking 
their time before tossing, and it is in this instant that the 
performer throws his darts and skips over the barrier. It 
is a question of nerve and suppleness reduced into seconds. 
The pain of the wound sends the bull cajDering around the 
arena, and other agile dart-throwers have their chance. In 
the meantime red capes and scarfs are thrown before his 
eyes to excite him. After the bull has been worried by 
the dart-throwers and cape-danglers, the horsemen attack 
him. The duty of the horseman is to throw a dart about 
four feet long into the bull's neck, and so manage his horse 
as to keep him from harm. Horses are trained to these 
experiences, just as in the West they are trained to hunt 
buffalo, and it is a disgrace for a cavalier to allow his horse 
to come to harm. As a closing act, some daring fellows 
attack the bull, jump over his horns, seize his tail, and 
overjoower him. This done, and the bull thoroughly 
beaten, a half-dozen trained oxen with bells around their 



AROUND THE WORLD. 531 

necks are driven in. The bull welcomes them as friends, 
and goes out in their company. The darts are removed, 
the sore parts rubbed with salt and vinegar. It is not often 
that a bull goes twice into the ring. He learns the trick 
the first time, and if called upon for a second performance, 
stolidly takes his place in the corner, and watches his ene- 
mies skip around without budging. 

This is cruel enough to our Anglo-Saxon eyes, and we 
would be sorry to see even Portuguese bull-fighting intro- 
duced into New York. But how humane, compared with 
the bull-fight in Spain ! The two forms of amusement 
show one essential point of variance between the two 
countries, for in nothing can you read a people so clearly 
as in their amusements. Alike in so many things — shoots 
from the same tree — contiguous in territory, the languages 
in afiinity, more closely allied in all respects than any 
other two neighboring nations in Europe. In one you see 
progress in thought, public freedom, manners, and morals 
— an effort to keep abreast of the century. The best 
friends of Spain rejoice if they can see that she is not 
more than a century in the rear. The influences that have 
affected Portugal, however, will in time awaken in Spain 
the better sentiment of her people. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

GENERAL GEANT RETTJENS TO SPAIN A VISIT TO COR- 
DOVA—THE FAMOUS MOSQUE THE HISTORY OF THE 

CITY SEVILLE A CHAT WITH MONTPENSIER ■ — 

MEMORIES OF SEVILLE MODERN LIFE IN THE CITY 

CADIZ DREAM-LIFE LAND AND SEA THE 

BEAUTIFUL CITY THE ANGELUS BELLS. 

From Portugal General Grant and his party returned 
to Spain. The first place visited was Cordova. A corre- 
spondent to the New York Herald writes : — It was late in 
the evening, and a heavy rain was falling, when General 
Grant and his party reached Cordova. The Governor of 
the city and the authorities were waiting at the station. 
After the long ride from Lisbon it was j^leasant to rest, 
even in the indifferent condition of comfort provided in a 
Spanish inn. There was .a visit to the theatre, a ramble 
about the streets, which is General Grant's modern fashion 
of taking possession of a town ; there was a stroll up the 
Roman bridge, the arches of which are as stout and fresh 
as if the workmen had just laid down their tools. There 
was a visit to a Moorish mill in which the millers were 
grinding wheat. There was the casino, and the ascent of 
a tower from which Andalusia is seen spreading out before 
us green and smiling. And this sums up Cordova. What 
you read of its ancient Roman and Moorish splendor, all 
traces of it have vanished, and you feel, as you wind and 
unwind yourself through the tortuous streets, that you are 
in a forgotten remnant of Spain;, that civilization has 
changed its course, as rivers at home sometimes do, and 

632 • 



AROUND THE WORLD. 533 

run into a new channel, leaving Cordova to one side. Tlie 
only evidence of modern life is the railway-station. 

It was pleasant while at Cordova to meet Mr. Hett, 
the American Secretary of Legation at Paris, and his wife, 
who were returning to France from a holiday in the Penin- 
sula. In the morning the mosque was visited. We had 
thought that it might be better to visit the mosque alone, 
without state or ceremony, but the authorities of Cordova 
were in an advanced stage of courtesy, and our visit was 
in state. It seemed almost like a desecration — this dress 




MOSQUE OF CORDOVA. 

and parade within these unique and venerable walls. The 
mosque is even now among the wonders of Europe. It 
stands on the site of an ancient temple of Janus. Eleven 
centuries ago, the Moors resolved to build a temple to the 
worship of God and Mohammed His prophet, which 
should surpass all other temples in the world. Out of this 
resolution came this building. You can see even now the 
mosque in its day justified the extravagant commendations 



534 GRANT'S TOUR 

of the Arabian historians. There was an enclosed court- 
yard, in which orange-trees were growing, and priests walk- 
ing up and down, taking the morning air. This enclosure 
seemed to be a bit out of Islam, and it looked almost like 
a profanation of Moslem rites to see men in attendance 
wearing the garb of Kome — so cool, so quiet, so retired, so 
sheltered from the outer world that one could well imagine 
it to have been the place of refuge and rest which Mohammed 
intended as the special purpose of every mosque. As you 
enter, the first impression is as of a wilderness of low columns 
that run in all directions. These columns were formerly 
whitewashed by the Christians, after the taking of Cordova, 
but under Isabella's government the whitewash was re- 
moved, and you now see the ancient red and white brick 
walls and precious stones of which they are made. There 
is a tradition that most of these columns were made out of 
the materials of the ancient Roman temple which stood on 
this site, and that some were sent from the temples of Car- 
thage. It was easy to see that they were not the work of 
any one mind, but rather represent the enterprise of the 
builders in rummaging among other ruins, or the generos- 
ity of priests and rulers, who showed their desire to stand 
well with the Governor of Cordova by sending a quantity 
of columns for the mosque. In this way it happens that 
some of the columns are of jasper, others of porphyry, 
others of choice marbles. Some, you notice, are short, and 
have had to be supplemented by mechanical contrivances. 
But although a close examination of the mosque shows 
these differences and really adds to its interest, the general 
effect is unique and imposing. You note with impatience 
that the governors under Charles V. had a large part of 
this incomparable series of arches removed to build a mod- 
ern chapel, and, although the chapel was not without inter- 
est in res^^ect to woodwork and tapestry, its presence here 



AROUND THE WORLD. 535 

seems a violence to all the laws of art, and one can under- 
stand the chagrin of Charles V., who, when he examined 
the mosque for the first time in 1526, and saw what had 
been done in the building of this chapel, said, "You 
have built here what any one might have built anywhere 
else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the 
world." 

It is difficult to give an exact description of the mosque. 
Its value lies in the impression it makes on you, and in the 
fact that it is an almost perfect monument of Moslem civ- 
ilization in Spain. There is the ever-recurring Oriental 
arch, the inventor of which you sometimes think must 
have found his type in the orange. There are elaborate 
and gorgeous decorations of the sacred places of the mosque, 
where the Koran was kej)t, where the guilty ones sought 
refuge and unfortunate ones succor, where justice was ad- 
ministered and the laws of the Koran expounded. It all 
seems as clear and fresh — so genial is this Andalusian 
atmosphere — as it came from the hand of the faithful 
kings who built it. As one strolls through the arches, 
studying each varying phase of Oriental taste, the voices 
of the priests chanting the morning ser^TTce and the odor 
of incense are borne u]3on the air. It is startling to find 
Christians in the performance of their sacred ofiice within 
the walls of a building consecrated by the patience and de- 
votion of the unfortunate Moors. The lesson you always 
learn in Spain is what you see to-day, and what you ad- 
mire as the work of destiny, are only phases of changing 
and vanishing civilizations. The Moor may have mused 
over the ruins of Roman splendor even as we are musing 
over the monuments of the Moor's pride ; and even after 
we are gone others may look with wondering eyes upon 
that monument of Christian art and fanaticism — the Es- 
curial. 



536 GRANT'S TOUR 

Of its early history, Mr. Young says : — I have been 
reading an account of Cordova as it flourished long before 
Columbus discovered America. I read that it was built 
by the Phoenicians, and that when Hannibal invaded Italy 
Cordova followed his standard. Here are the very words 
from the Latin historian relating that adventure, "iV^c 
decu8 auriferrce — cessavit Corduba terrmr Seneca and 
Lucan were born at Cordova. The Komans founded a 
celebrated university here. After Koman and Goth had 
had their empire, it became a Moorish town, and under the 
Moors attained the height of its splendor. If you can 
believe the Moorish chronicles, you could travel ten miles 
from the centre of Cordova, the lights from the dwellings 
illuminating the way. Buildings ran twenty-six miles in 
one direction and six in another. The country dependent 
on it supported 3,000 towns and villages. The people in 
those days were proud of their dress, the university, the 
wine-shops, and especially gloried in their 'mosque. It is 
all that remains of their forgotten splendor. There were 
pleasure-gardens with all kinds of fruits, among them the 
luscious peach, the very taste of which has gone from 
memory. There was a joalace, of which not a stone can be 
discovered, which, according to the chronicles, must have 
surpassed any achievement of modern royalty. In this 
palace were more than four thousand columns, and doors 
of varied decoration to the number of 15,000. The 
Komans came and razed it to the ground, and there is no 
remnant of its glory, nor any vestige of its ancient or med- 
iaeval sjDlendor, but the stone bridges across the river built 
by the Romans, and the famous mosque, now called a 
cathedral, built by the Moors. 

From Cordova the party proceeded to Seville. Our 
correspondent writes: — Our stay in Seville was marked 
by one incident of a personal character worthy of venera- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 537 

tion — the visit of General Grant to the Duke of Mont- 
pensier. The day after General Grant arrived in Seville 
the Duke called on him, and the next day was spent by 
the General and his party in the hospitable halls and gar- 
dens of St. Telmo. The Duke regretted that, his house 
being in mourning on account of the death of his daughter, 
Queen Mercedes, he could not give General Grant a more 
formal welcome than a quiet luncheon party. The Duke, 
the Duchess and their daughter were present, and after 
luncheon the General and Duke spent an hour or two 
strolling through the gardens, which are among the most 
beautiful in Europe. The Duke spoke a great deal of his 
relations with America, and especially of the part which 
his nephews had j^layed in the war against the South, At 
the close of the reception the General drove back to the 
hotel and the next morning left for Cadiz. 

In no part of the peninsula does a traveller returning 
to Spain see so many changes as in Seville. You are re- 
minded of the transformation that has been wrought over 
Washington, — dear, dirty, drowsy old Washington, as it 
was before the war, — a sprawling village of mud and mar- 
ble, and what it is now, among the most beautiful of cities. 
In the olden days Seville was a beggars' opera. The streets 
seemed to have been neglected since the Moorish surrender. 
The principal occupation was dozing in the sun. You 
could not walk to the church without going through a 
swarm of beggars. It was beggary militant, almost brig- 
andage. The beggars, held the town, and there was nothing 
but surrender or fight. If you came from the outside 
world you were their lawful prey, and sight-seeing was, as 
a general thing, leading a procession of men, women, and 
children . in all conditions of misery — cripples, dwarfs, 
blind. A shrewd friend of mine, then resident in Seville, 
told me that his plan was to hire a beggar, and pay him 



538 GRANT'S TOUR 

three or four francs a week, on condition that the others 
did not disturb him. His plan was a success. The moment 
it was known that he had capitulated, and made himself 
a subject and tribute-payer, he was unmolested. That is 
changed. There are a few beggars in Seville, but not one- 
half as many as in Dublin. 

In those days Seville seemed a city in which to dream. 
It was so Sj)anish — I mean in the sense in which the 
world understands Spanish. It was Spanish as we see the 
type in comedies. The whole town was so quaint, so un- 
like anything in our own world. The streets ran in all di- 
rections. There were no sidewalks. Men, women, donkeys, 
water-carriers, all streamed along in friendly fashion over 
narrow, winding ways paved in stone. You saw the warm 
tints and the glowing color of the South, the beauty of An- 
dalusia. The men wore costumes appertaining to the prov- 
ince, and had not fallen into French ways. The damsels 
wore the veil and mantilla. They had not learned the 
vanity of bonnets. It was like stepping back two centu- 
ries — back to the world of Cervantes — to walk along the 
street called Sierpes. This was the Broadway of Seville, 
or, to be more exact, the Broadway and Fifth Avenue com- 
bined ; for here people came to shop as well as stroll. It 
was the oldest street, only a few feet wide, with the strangest 
mingling of costumes and decorations. Soldiers in their 
jaunty uniforms, bull-fighters with their cues of hair, and 
jackets trimmed with braid, peasants with pork-pie hats a 
century old, faded woollen jackets and breeches ; peasant 
lasses with gaudy, jaunty costumes ; bakers serving bread 
from donkeys, the donkey decorated in the Alhambra style, 
the hair on his hide carved into shapes as curious as the 
dome in the Alcazar ; singing-girls with guitars, the hair 
falling over the shoulders, and no adornment beyond a rose 
or a ribbon ; shovel-hatted priests, with long, black robes, an 



AROUND THE WORLD.' 539 

important feature of the society. There were the religious 
processions, some imaged saint or Virgin held aloft, with a 
swarm of priests and attendants ; incense-bearers, canopy- 
bearers, priests chanting their offices, and all the world 
hurrying to its knees as it elbowed its way along. 

Something of this you may still see on the street called 
Sierpes, but it is only memory. The priests are there, but 
not so many of them. The beggars have gone, let us hope 
into better employments. The donkeys hold their place, 
but the decorated donkey is not so familiar. There are 
fewer stores in which you can buy scapula and rosary. 
The sewing-machine has come and the walls are covered 
with placards telling how each machine has won more 
medals than the other — puzzling, no doubt, to the cred- 
ulous Spanish mind. The hotel has assumed Continental 
airs, especialy in charges for coffee in the morning and 
candles. The narrow streets along which you could stroll 
and dream and feel the drowsy insouciance of the place 
and summon up the legends and poems of Seville — the 
•wandering, tortuo'us streets in which you went around and 
about, sure to lose your way and never to regain it until 
you found the Cathedral tower and worked your way back 
as though you were working out an observation in navi- 
gation — are now given over to hurried business, people 
and groups talking politics. Down by the river it was 
pleasant to stroll and see the beggars loll in the sun, watch- 
ing their fellow-beings pack oranges. If one person were 
really at work over his oranges there were a dozen standing 
by and looking on, smoking cigarettes, telling him ab9ut 
the bulls that came in the evening, what fun it was sitting 
up all night that they might see the bulls and poke them 
with sticks, idling and talking politics. Seville was a re- 
publican town in those days. But the republican senti- 
ment has chilled since it has been discovered that even 



GRANT'S TOUR 



republicans must work. An illusion of tliis kind was 
fatal to a missionary enterprise. A clergyman came to 
Spain and organized a church upon good Presbyterian 
ideas, the 23eo23le to rule the church and the pastor be a 
servant. The church succeeded at first, because the social- 
ists joined it under the impression that this princi23le of 
church government, so unlike the absolute, imjDcrial sway 
of Rome, was socialism in a new form. But when they 




SCENE NEAR SEVILLE. 



found they had to abandon the Virgin and purgatory and 
the saints, and the other comforts of faith, and come down 
to the dry head of Presbyterianism, with eternal damnation 
thrown in, the church vanished. The Spaniard is a gam- 
bler. Even in his religion he does not want a lottery in 
which there are no prizes. 

As I was saying, you stroll down by the river and see 
ships in Seville — steamshijDS and sailing-vessels — some 
of them, as you note with quickening heart-throb, under 
the American flag. And the bridge over which the beg- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 541 

gars used to crouch and watch the Guadalquiver is now a 
stream of industry — such as it is — not a New York 
stream, mad, furious, dangerous, rushing, but wonderful 
for Seville. Chimneys adorn the horizon — chimneys with 
smoke from furnaces, where men work, and which were not 
here five years ago. Avenues and gardens are laid out 
and the trees are young. The new town is enclosing the 
old one, and Seville — no longer the dreamy Seville of 
Figaro and Don Juan — is an old town surrounded by a 
new one — the fourteenth century encompassed by the 
nineteenth. It seems like losing a familiar friend or the 
passing away of early associations, the change that has 
come upon Seville. It is a violation of all poesy to see a 
real smoking chimney and people at work. It was almost 
with a pang that I heard of an express-train between Mad- 
rid and Seville — one a week, and soon to be two a week." 
Why could it not live on forever in this humming, droning 
fashion — a picturesque, inviting town for idle men to visit 
and dream the hours away in wandering through the naves 
of St. Griselda and the gardens of the Alcazar ? But the 
clock moves on and on, and you cannot turn back the 
hands, and the clock of nineteenth century civilization is 
striking every hour in Sjoain. 

Cadiz is the next point visited, and one of the party 
thus refers to it : — It is as you saunter along the streets 
that you see the outside life of Spain. As the afternoon 
lengthens, and the white houses become tawny m the 
shadows of the descending sun, it is pleasant to stroll out 
to the Battery. You have no care as to your road, for in 
this mazy town the first corner into any road w^ill lead to 
the Battery. All the world is going with you — grave, 
stately senors to smoke their cigarettes in the cooling, 
wholesome air, and gracious senoras in their bewitching 
Spanish costumes, who glance at you with their deep, black, 



542 GRANT'S TOUR 

Oriental eyes, and float along. My best autliority on tlie 
ladies of Cadiz is that of Lord Byron. But his lordship 
pays tribute to this beauty at the expense of higher qual- 
ities when he pays Cadiz a " sweeter though ignoble praise," 
and tells how Aphrodite made her shrive within these 
white walls. Lord Byron was more of a poet than a his- 
torian in these criticisms. You can trust his lordship in 
his descriptions of scenery, but not in historical or moral 
reflections. And as you float on this ripple of beauty that 
wafts on towards the Battery and the sea, you feel that so 
much beauty must have a higher purpose than revelry and 
crime, and that the sweeping lines in " Childe Harold " 
were applied to Cadiz because they happened to fit, and 
might as well have been written about Cowes or Hamburg. 
In the evening every one goes to the Battery. The air is 
warm with the sunshine, with airs that come from Africa, 
yet tem^Dered with the ever-soothing influence of the sea. 
The gardens are in bloom — the orange, the pomegranate, 
the banana, and the palm. You stroll along the Battery 
wall, and look out on the sea. The waves ri23j)le on the 
shore with the faintest murmur. A fleet of fishing-boats 
is at anchor, and their graceful bending masts recall the 
lateen masts of the Nile. A couple of boats have just 
come in, and are beached above the receding tide, and the 
fishermen, up to their knees in water, are scrubbing the 
sides and the keel. The work is pleasant, and the sea has 
been good, I hope, in its ofierings, for they sing a graceful 
song to lighten their labors. The tinkling bells denote the 
patient, heavy-laden donkeys, which pace their slow w^ay 
along the beach, laden with fish or fruit or water or wine. 
The city is on your right, the white walls rising on the 
terraced hills, glowing with white as they are seen against 
this deep blue sky. There are Moorish domes and Arabian 
turrets, that show all the meaning of their graceful out- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 543 

lines as you see them now massed into a 23icture, warmed 
with the richer hues of the descending sun. How beau- 
tiful is Cadiz, seen as you see her now, looking out like a 
sentinel upon the sea ! And thus she has stood, a sentinel 
between contending civilizations, for ages. I am almost 
afraid to say how many ages ; but the books will tell you 
that Hercules founded Cadiz more -than three centuries 
before E-ome was born, eleven centuries before our Saviour 
died. Here where the oceans meet, the southernmost point 
of Continental Europe, teeming Africa only a step beyond 
— here for ages, and through so many civilizations, the 
city whose glowing towers grow pink and purple in the 
sun's passing rays has stood guard. You think of the 
tides that have rolled and receded over the Mediterranean 
world, of cities that once ruled the world with their enter- 
prise and splendor; of envious Babylon and forgotten 
Tyre, and remember that modest Cadiz, who never sought 
empire, never challenged the cupidity of the bandit, has 
passed through the storms that destroyed her splendid 
rivals, and seems good for centuries more. Just over this 
smooth sea, where you might run in a few hours with one 
of these fishing-boats, is a sandy seaside plain where Arabs 
grow corn and dates, and loll in the noonday sun. This 
was Carthage, and how she looked down upon poor little 
Cadiz in her day, with her fleets proudly sweeping around 
these shores and promontories, with her armies striding 
over mountain and valley, with her captains resolved to 
conquer the world ! Yet of Carthage only the name re- 
mains, only a shadow, and modest Cadiz keeps her guard 
here, watching the splendors of London and New York 
and Paris, seeing all the world carry them tribute, seeing 
the flags of the Englishman sweep past her shores as 
proudly as the fleets of Hannibal and Caesar in other days. 
I wonder if beautiful Cadiz has patience in recalling this, 



544 GRANT'S TOUR 

and is content with her modest work, and feels that she 
will keep guard, perhaps, when the glory that now environs 
her has passed like that which once came from Carthage 
and Rome, and the sceptre of a world's suj)remacy will 
have passed to other hands. 

You think of these things as you lean over this Bat- 
tery wall, and look at the beautiful city, growing more 
beautiful in the purple and pearl of the descending sun. 
A freshening breeze comes over the sea, and the waves purr 
and play as they gambol on the rough, stony beach. A 
ship comes hurrying in, hugging the coast, scudding on at 
full sail. How beautiful she looks ! Every sail set, her 
flag sending signals to the shore, her prow bent forward 
like a strong man running his race, anxious for the goal. 
In a few minutes the evening gun will fire, and the port will 
close. So she flies along, firm in her purpose, eager diving, 
laden with the purposes and achievements of another world, 
minister and messenger of peace. I remember an idle dis- 
cussion — perhaps I read it in some forgotten book, j)erhaps 
I heard it in some foolish dinner debate — as to which was 
the most beautiful object in the world, a maiden in the 
fulness of her years, a race-horse at his highest speed, or 
a ship in full sail. I have forgotten what my own views 
may have been ; perhaps it was a subject on which I had 
not taken definite sides. But looking over this sea-wall 
at the ship, with every sail bent, wooing the winds and 
striving for the haven, I can well see that the beauty it 
implies is of the highest and noblest type. There is the 
beauty of form, the snugly set keel breasting the waves, the 
lines that bend and curve, the lines that tower into the air. 
There is the beauty of purpose — which really is the soul 
of all beauty — the purpose being to win the race, to carry 
her treasure, to make a true and good voyage, to do some- 
thing, to defy wind and waves and relentless seas, and come 



AROUND THE WORLD. 545 

into this harbor and strew the wharf with corn, cotton, or 
oil. There is the beauty of nature, for the sea is before 
us, and long lines of hills crest the horizon ; and just over 
the crisp and curling blue a light tint of silver falls, and 
you look into the heavens, and there, coming out of the 
skies, you see the outlines of a full-orbed moon, that will 
soon throw a new radiance over these towers and hills and 
waves. You watch yon ship as she moves in, and feel that, 
for this moment at least, there is nothing more beautiful, 
and you are content to see that fortune favors her, and 
that she comes into her refuge before the port is closed. 

As we stand leaning over this sea-wall and follow every 
tint of the changing scene, we note the long bronze cannon 
that look through the embrasures, pointing to the sea. 
They seem out of place in Cadiz. Surely she has lived all 
these ages, triumphant over so many civilizations, who 
would still be living if cannon could assure life. They are 
poor, foolish cannon, too, long, narrow bronze affairs, that 
look puny beside those mighty engines which now secure 
the prowess of England and Germany. But even Cadiz 
has human nature, and if other people wear cannon, she 
must needs have cannon. I suppose the instinct which 
prompts these expenses and performances is like the in- 
stinct which prompts those we love, protect, and cherish 
to run into crinoline in one season and into the reverse 
another. Cadiz wears her cannon like crinoline. It is 
the custom, and her sons and daughters look proudly 
upon these lean, lank, crouching guns, and feel that they 
bar out the opposing world, when, as a matter of fact, the 
opposing world, if it came behind the guns of England, 
would fear those cannon no more than if they were bam- 
^ boo tissues. 

But we cannot quarrel with the vanities of the beauti- 
ful city, and hoj)e she deems her cannon becoming. The 



546 GRANT'S TOUR 

light starts w^ from various points — a light here and 
there, giving token of the coming night. The ringing of 
bells falls on the ear — of many bells — that ring as 
though it were a summons or an admonition. They come 
from all parts of the city, and their jangling is tempered 
into a kind of music by the distance and the clearness of 
the air. This is the angelus. In this Catholic country it 
is the custom, when the sun goes down, for the priest to go 
to his prayers, and for all Christian souls to cease what- 
ever calling may employ them and for a few moments to 
join him in his prayer, thanking the Virgin for having 
given them the blessing of another day, thanking the 
saints for having watched over them, praying our Saviour 
to be with them alway, and give them at the end the grace 
of a happy death. As the bells ring out, you know that 
all Cadiz turns by instinct and for a few moments joins the 
praying priest in his supplications. From this point of 
view what a beauty you find in those angelus bells as you 
lean over the sea-wall — the cool breezes fanning your 
cheek and hear them jangle in the evening air. Stately 
Spanish gentlemen pause and their cloaks fall from the 
shoulder — for the Spanish gentleman always uncloaks 
himself when he greets you — and now he is greeting 
supremacy and looks out towards the sea and follows the 
distant priest in his prayer. My lady with the glowing 
eyes pauses and the head drops a moment, and making the 
sign of the cross, she passes on. For a few minutes the 
jangling bells ring out and all the world is at prayer. 
He would be a 230or Spaniard, whatever his creed or ways, 
who could allow those bells to pass without answering their 
invocation. They ring for him now as they did for his 
infancy, as they rang for his ancestors, as they ring every 
day of his life. Whatever the world may do in the way 
of temptation or duty, for one moment the Church comes 



AROUND THE WORLD. 547 

and absorbs his soul, and he is one with the thousands 
around him, and his heart goes in reverence to its Maker ; 
and as you hear these jangling bells, you feel how fond and 
vast and supreme is this religion, whose command falls 
ujDon a people from a hundred turret bells. 

There is not a more happy-go-lucky piece of humanity 
than your Spanish peasant. Give him his vino tinto, his 
olla, his cigarette, and his dance, and he 's as happy as a 
king. If he can earn in the morning as much as will sup- 
ply his wants, it never enters his head to work during the 
day. He knocks off, repairs to the nearest venta or wine- 
shop, and there enjoys himself after his sweet, wild will. 
If he can earn a peseta, well and good ; if not, he gaily 
succumbs to reales ; and if reales are not in the market, he 
23uts up with cuartos and — an onion. 

To see that man sitting astride his donkey on his road 
to market, is a rare treat to the observant traveller. The 
patient animal — laden, as to panniers, with wine, olives, or 
every conceivable description of vegetables — still finds room 
for its lazy master, who perches himself in the midst of 
the impedimenta, running his feet into a leathern strap fast- 
ened round the donkey's neck, close to the poor brute's 
head. He smokes and sings — such droning ! and stops to 
gossip, or to let his dapple graze, or upon any excuse that 
may offer; and, his cargo once disposed of, becomes a 
man upon town. He is good-humored, civil, but languid. 
There is no "go" in him; his vim would seem to have 
deserted him, leaving nothing but the outward semblance 
of a man. 



CHAPTEK XXVIII. 

GENEEAL GEANT VISITS GIBEALTAE SAILING OVEE MEM- 

OEABLE TEAFALGAE GIBEALTAE AS A CLASSIC AND 

MODEEN TOWN ANCIENT MEMOEIES OF GIBEALTAE 

HOW THE MOOE, SPANIAED, AND ENGLISHMAN HAVE 

STEUGGLED FOE THE EOCK GENEEAL GEANT AND 

LOED NAPIEE AN AMEEICAN WELCOME A EEVIEW 

AND SHAM BATTLE THE AMEEICAN GENEEAL's OPIN- 
ION OF THE BEITISH SOLDIEES. 

General Grant and his party left Cadiz, on tlie morn- 
ing of November 17tli, for Gibraltar. Our correspondent 
thus relates the subsequent events : — We left Cadiz in the 
early morning, and the sea was in her gentlest mood. 
General Duffie, our gallant and genial Consul, was with us. 
The run from Gibraltar carries you past some of the famous 
cities of the world. It is the thin line that divides two 
continents, the barrier over which civilizations have dashed 
and fallen. So much of the romance of European travel 
is embraced in these historic memories, that you find your- 
self, even in the presence of Nature in her most gracious 
and resplendent moods, diverted from the contemplation of 
her beauty into a revery upon forgotten ages and the great 
men who lived then. This city we are leaving, for in- 
stance, whose towers are glowing in the morning sun, was 
founded by Hercules. The city we left the other day, 
Lisbon, was founded by Ulysses. The city to which we 
are steering was the Calpe of the classic age. These rocks, 
over which the sunny waves are breaking in smooth, idle 
fashion, and along which grimy peasants are groping for 
oysters and sea-weeds, were the Ultima Thule of the an- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



549 



cient days. Beyond was the dark unknown. This strait 
was the gate of the Mediterranean, and we feel, as we are 
steaming towards it, as we see the enclosing hills that almost 
seem to touch and to mark for us the two continents, we 
feel that we leave behind us the modern and come into the 
ancient world. It was through this strait that Columbus 
sailed when he discovered America. Can you fancy what 
he felt as he pushed into the sea and left behind him his 
gentle Mediterranean? And as if Providence, in the 
marking out of the globe, had determined the battle-fields 







r^* 






i^msr 




THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM A DISTANCE. 

of the giants, you are reminded that in all the struggles 
for the mastery of empires this narrow strait has borne her 
part. Cadiz vanishes away. It is a long time before we 
lose sight of her, as for a long time she remains glowing 
on the horizon, like a radiant gem in azure setting. We 
pass a jetting promontory and enter a bay, and we know 
that here giants have contended, for in this bay was fought 
the battle of Trafalgar seventy-six years ago, and the 
might of England was permitted to grapple with the might 



550 GRANT'S TOUR 

of France. I supi^ose no event, for centuries, at least, was 
more decisive of the fate of the European world, than the 
battle which took place in these smooth waters over which 
our small bark merrily courses, and which we, a party of 
idle, gossipping tourists, are studying, not without an im- 
patient feeling towards the Spanish cooks who are behind 
with breakfast. There is scarcely a breeze to disturb its 
fair surface, so rent and torn on that fateful day. If Nel- 
son had been defeated here, I suppose England would have 
been invaded by Napoleon, and, when we see what great 
armies have been able to do with the most civilized of na- 
tions, is there any limit to what might have been done to 
England by the army which conquered at Austerlitz? 
But it was not to be. The fates had decreed that here, on 
this fishing-ground, the ambition of Napoleon should be 
stayed and England saved. 

It is not a long journey from Cadiz to Gibraltar, and 
after passing Trafalgar all eyes look for the teeming rock 
on which England holds guard over the highway to India. 
Gibraltar is one in a line of posts which English policy is 
compelled to retain for the defence of her empire. Oddly 
enough, the impartial observer cannot help noting that this 
England, the most inoffensive of nations, always craving 
peace, wishing to molest no one, always selects for these 
posts a position of menace to other Powers. From Aden 
she menaces Egypt; Hong Kong is a guard upon China; 
from Heligoland she observes Germany ; Malta is the out- 
post of Italy and France and Austria, and to draw nearer 
to Kussia she took Cyprus. Rather than surrender Malta 
she went to war with Napoleon. On our own coasts the 
Bahamas are a menace to the United States. I have heard 
it estimated, by those who can form a good opinion, that 
the possession of the Bahama Islands by the English dur- 
ing our war with the South, entailed uj)on the North an 



AROUND THE WORLD. 551 

expense of millions that otherwise would have been saved. 
This neutral outpost of the British Empire really became 
a port of supply for the Southern Confederacy, and we were 
compelled to submit to it or incur a fearful trial. This is 
one of the aspects of the imperial policy of England which 
makes it a thorn in the side of other nations. I know how 
Americans felt about it not long since, and I am, therefore, 
prepared to sympathize with the emotions of the Spaniards, 
who never think of Gibraltar in Spanish hands without 
deep emotion. 

The history of Gibraltar is a romance. It was the 
Mons Calpe of the ancients, one of the pillars of Hercules 
that you find stamped on modern heraldry. The Koman 
writers tell of its wonderful caves and cliffs. It was Ptol- 
emy's column of the inner sea. When Islam swe23t over 
the Mediterranean in that marvellous invasion which was 
to give it empire in Spain, which was to threaten Christian 
supremacy in Europe, and change the march of civiliza- 
tion, it was at Gibraltar that Islam's flag was first unfurled. 
For eight centuries it was a Moorish fortress, and even now 
the first object you note as you come in from the sea is the 
Moorish tower, whose gray walls looked down upon Co- 
lumbus, when, with his frail pinnaces, he passed through 
this strait into the Atlantic. The j^oets say it was because 
Koderic, the Gothic king, carried away the daughter of a 
Spanish nobleman who governed Ceuta, that this noble- 
man, in revenge, planned the invasion of Gothic Spain. 
But the poets from Homer's time find woman's beauty at 
the bottom of all achievements, and history gives graver 
reasons. The time was ripe for the fertile host of Islam 
to invade Spain, and it came. It vanquished the Goth, even 
as the Roman had vanquished the Carthagenian, to be 
driven by the Christian. It is believed that the Moslems 
were tempted to come, because Andalus, as Andalusian 



552 GRANT'S TOUR 

Spain was then called, was a winning land, with springs, 
gardens, and rivers, giving fruits and plants, and with men 
and women who would make handsome slaves. But they 
came, more than eleven hundred years ago, within the 
century succeeding the Hegira. Tarik, a Persian, was the 
commander of the expedition, and the point at which he 
landed was called Gebal-Tarik, which means Tarik's moun- 
tain, in his honor — a name which soon came to be known, 
in our modern way of handling names, as Gibraltar. 

So long as the Moslems remained in Spain — more than 
seven centuries — they held Gibraltar. One of the Spanish 
kings captured it, a Seville archbishop leading the columns 
of attack, but it was retaken. Here the Moslems made their 
first landing; here was their point of departure. The 
bishops were famous fighters in those days. Gibraltar 
seemed to be the rock, in the whirlpool of mediaeval wars, 
around which the currents of contending armies were ever 
seething. It was here that the great Alphonso died, his 
army menaced by the plague which swept over Europe. 
His body rests in quaint old Cordova. It is pleasant to 
read that many Moors came unarmed to do homage to his 
remains, and that his foe gave orders that the army which 
accompanied his remains should not be disturbed. Alphonso 
had a noticeable tint of green in his eyes. In 1436, artil- 
lery was first used by the famous De Guzman, but the 
Moors defeated and slew De Guzman, and suspended the 
cofiin containing his remains from one of the turrets of the 
old Moorish castle, where idle travellers go now to look out 
upon the African hills and the plains of Andalusia. All 
this time matters were going badly with the Moslem. The 
tide of war, which had flowed on until it almost reached 
the Pyrenees, was ebbing. The Duke of Medino-Sidonia, 
son of Guzman, in the latter part of the fifteenth century 
made a dash at the fortress. The spirit of Islam was faint, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



553 



indexed, for the town fell after a spiritless struggle. The 
wise policy of Queen Isabella confirmed the possession. 
"When Charles V. came in, he took pains to strengthen the 
fortress, especially against Turkish pirates, who infested the 
coasts of the Mediterranean. Dashes were made 'upon the 
fort and town, from which it suffered. The crown also 
made a penal settlement of the place, which was not calcu- 
lated to improve its tone. In the reigii of Charles were 




THE ASSAULT UPON GIBRALTAR. 



begun those series of works which are now among the 
wonders of the world. Philip IL and his son continued 
these defenses. In the Spanish war of the succession, Eng- 
land began to extend her dominions in the Mediterranean, 
and this purpose led to another and decisive change in the 
fortunes of the city. 

Marlborough was sent out to fight the French by land 
and Admiral Rooke by sea. In 1704, Rooke made up his 



554 GRANT'S TOUR 

mind to assail Gibraltar. On the 21st of July, in that 
year, in command of an English fleet, embracing sixty- 
three vessels, carrying 4,450 guns, and over twenty thou- 
sand men, he made an assault on the fort, which surren- 
dered after a gallant defense, and the flag of England has 
ever since floated from its battlements. In October of the 
same year, a French fleet of twenty-two vessels came into 
the bay and besieged the fort. The siege lasted until April 
18, 1705, causing the garrison much suffering. But rein- 
forcements came from England and drove the French away. 
In the Treaty of Utrecht, a clause was inserted giving Gib- 
raltar to England — England promising that no Jews or 
Moors should have their residence in Gibraltar. The sur- 
render was always a sore point to the proud Spaniard. In 
that day, writes Lord Maben, there was scarcely a Spanish 
statesman " who might not have applied to himself the say- 
ing of Queen Mary, and declared that when he died the 
w^ord Gibraltar would be found engraved on his heart." 

At one time it was proposed to give up Gibraltar for 
Florida or St. Domingo, but Spain declined. In 1727 the 
discontent in Spain over the English occupation was one 
impelling cause of the war and of what is known as the 
great siege of Gibraltar. The Spaniards had a large army, 
and they made a prolonged attack. Some Moors and Jews 
within the town entered into a conspiracy to surrender. 
They were detected. Two of the Moors were executed and 
afterwards flayed and their skins nailed to the town gates. 
In 1757, Chatham offered to give up Gibraltar to Sj)ain as 
a condition of her not joining the coalition against England 
and restoring Minorca. The offer came too late. Gibral- 
tar remained with England, and was governed with a ra- 
pacity and shamelessness that would delight the old mas- 
ters of New York under Tammany Hall. Then came the 
American Kebellion and the alliances between the Amer- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 555 

icans and the Frencli. Oddly enougli, one of tlie incidents 
of tliat war was the siege of Gibraltar in 1779. England 
was busy with her own colonies, and Spain made another 
attempt to take the town. There was a blockade, during 
Avhich the people lived on fish and flour, " small fish, not 
larger than sprats, selling for two shillings." When the 
garrison were almost starved into a surrender, an assault 
was made. The fort fired red-hot balls on the ships, de- 
stroying one of the largest armaments that had ever been 
sent out by Spain. Elliot, who made this defence one of 
the noblest in military annals, became Lord Heathfield. 
For four years the gates were closed, and only opened 
in 1783, when the general ^^eace was concluded. King 
Charles of Sj^ain had staked the resources of his nation on 
the attack, and had failed. In the negotiations that led to 
a peace and the recognition of American independence, 
Franklin suggested and the French urged the restoration 
of Gibraltar to Spain. He argued that Portsmouth could 
be as justly claimed by Spain as Gibraltar by England. 
The question reached Parliament, and Fox in his speech 
showed what he thought of this town when he said that 
the American colonies might have been saved to England 
had a fleet been stationed at Gibraltar to intercept the jDass- 
age of d'Estaing. Burke added in the debate that " as a 
post of war, a post of power, a post of commerce and a post 
which made England valuable to her friends and dreadful 
to her enemies," Gibraltar "was invaluable. Then England 
declared that no conditions whatever would induce the 
British nation to cede the fortress to Spain. So the dis- 
cussion ended, and with it the superhuman efforts which 
Spain for a century had made to win back her darling 
rock. 

Gibraltar has been in the possession of the English 
since 1704. That is a very long time, as sovereignties 



55Q G I? A NT'S TOUR 

shift nowadays, for any country to hold a foreign posses- 
sion. It was taken in war and has been held ever since as 
a citadel of English strength in the Mediterranean. The 
Spaniard has never been content with the occupation of 
Gibraltar by a foreigner, and yet there is so little in the 
island intrinsically that the only object of its being held by 
another nation is a sentimental one. If Gibraltar were 
sold as a piece of real estate to the highest bidder, it would 
not bring so much as the wild headlands on the western 
coasts of North America. It is a rock jutting suddenly 
out of the sea, habitable only on its rim or edge, useful 
only as a fortress. The English hold nothing scarcely but 
the rock. There is a little patch of ground just behind, 
where the troops manoeuvre, and then you cross into Spain. 

The sea was very calm as we came from Cadiz, but as 
we entered Gibraltar Bay it began to roughen. The first 
thing to welcome us was the American flag flying from one 
of our men-of-war. There was some difficulty in distin- 
guishing the vessel uutil we came nearer, when we recog- 
nized Captain Robeson and several other officers, our old 
friends and shipmates of the steamship Vandalia. The 
General directed his vessel to steam around the Vandalia, 
and cordial greetings were exchanged between the two 
ships. As we headed into port the Vandalia mounted the 
yards, and Captain Robeson came in his barge to take the 
General on shore. The American Consul, Mr. Sj^rague, 
and two officers of Lord Napier's staff", met the General 
and welcomed him to Gibraltar in the name of the general 
commanding. Amid a high sea, which threw its sj^ray 
over most of the party, we pulled ashore. On landing, a 
guard of honor presented arms, and the General drove at 
once to the house of Mr. Sj^rague, on the hill. 

Mr. Sprague has lived many years at Gibraltar, and, I 
believe, is the oldest consular officer in the service of the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 557 

United States. General Grant is the third ex-President 
he has entertained at his house. Lord Napier of Magdala, 
the commander at Gibraltar, had telegraphed to Cadiz, 
asking the General to dinner on the evening of his arrival. 
At seven o'clock the General and Mrs. Grant, accompanied 
by the Consul, went to the palace of the Governor, called 
the Convent, and were received in the most hospitable 
manner by Lord Napier. His lordship had expressed a 
great desire to meet General Grant, and relations of cour- 
tesy had passed between them before. Lord Napier, who 
commanded the expeditionary force in Abyssinia, having 
sent General Grant King Theodore's Bible. The visit to 
Gibraltar may be summed up in a series of dinners — first, 
at the Governor's palace ; second, with the mess of the 
Koyal Artillery; again, at the Consul's. Then there were 
one or two private and informal dinners at Lord Napier's, 
and, in fact, most of General Grant's time at Gibraltar 
was spent in the company of this distinguished commander 
— a stroll round the batteries, a ride over the hills, a gallop 
along the beach, a review of troops, and taking part in a 
sham battle. Lord Napier was anxious to show General 
Grant his troops, and although, as those who know Gen- 
eral Grant can testify, he has a special aversion to military 
display, he spent an afternoon in witnessing a march past 
of the British garrison, and afterwards a sham battle. It 
was a beautiful day for the manoeuvres. General Grant 
rode to the field accompanied by Lord Napier, General 
Conolly, and others of the staff. Mrs. Grant, accompanied 
by the Consul and the ladies of the Consul's family, fol- 
lowed and took up her station by the reviewing post. The 
English bands all played American airs out of compliment 
to the General, and the review was given in his honor. 
Lord Napier was exceedingly j^leased with the troops, and 
said to General Grant he supposed they were on their best 



558 GRANT'S TOUR 

behavior, as lie had never seen them do so well. The 
General examined them very closely, and said that he did 
not see how their discipline could be improved. " I have 
seen," said the General, " most of the troof)S of Europe ; 
they all seemed good. I liked the Germans very much, 
and the Spaniards only wanted good officers, so far as I 
could see, to bring them up to the highest standard ; but 
these have something about them — I supjDose it is their 
Saxon blood — which none of the rest possess ; they have 
the swing of conquest." 

The General would have liked to have remained at 
Gibraltar longer, but there is nothing in the town beyond 
the garrison. I suppose his real attraction to the ^^lace 
was the pleasure he found in Lord Napier's society and 
again coming in contact with English ways and customs 
after having been so long with the stranger. Gibraltar is 
a military despotism tempered by smuggling. Held in 
spite of Spain by a foreign Power, without any dependence 
ujDon the Power which governs it except that of a soldier 
who obeys his general, without municipal j^ride, Gibraltar 
seems to be a refuge for all kinds of characters and adven- 
turers, and depends for its supjDort on two industries — 
first, the industry of supplying the wants of the garrison, 
and, second, that of smuggling tobacco into S]3ain. You 
will have observed from the debates in the S^Danish Cortes 
that Spain complains bitterly that this smuggling costs 
their treasury several millions of dollars a year, and they 
ask England to prevent this. But one of the Spanish offi- 
cials told us in Gibraltar that the main trouble about this 
smuggling was the cupidity of the Spanish officials them- 
selves. There seems to be no reason why England should 
build and support custom-houses for Spain, and there was 
a panic among some of the merchants at the bare possibility 
of custom-houses being established. On the other hand, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 559 

the fair view of the subject you take is that if England 
holds Spanish territory for her own imperial jDurposes she 
should, as an act of kindness to a friendly nation, see that 
that possession does not interfere with Spanish prosperity. 
At the present time, however, the question of the right of 
occupation of Gibraltar becomes one of additional interest. 
Sultan Muley Hassan, of Morocco, has just succeeded in 
putting down a troublesome rebellion in his kingdom. His 
army is encamped near Rabat, and thirty-four decapitated 
heads of the Berber insurgents adorn the walls of the city. 
But under cover of dealing with the insurgents, Sultan Muley 
Hassan has been very busy in importing arms and ammu- 
nition, in doing which England has been assisting him to 
the best of her ability. Moroccan soldiers have been 
drilled at Gibraltar, English officers have taken service in 
the Sultan's army, and a number of fortified places, more 
especially Tangier, have been strengthened by English en- 
gineers and English cannon of large calibre. So at least 
say the Spanish papers and the Paris Iloniteur, although 
the English Chancellor ridicules the soft insinuation. But 
the assertions are doubtless true, and the reasons for ac- 
cej^ting them are not to be looked for far away. Spain has 
a standing grievance against England. Castelar, speaking 
very recently, recalled to the minds of his countrymen the 
fact that Spanish soil was still in the hands of the foreigner. 
There appears to the Spaniard only one way of getting the 
Bock from England, and that is by annexing Morocco. 
The idea is not a bad one. Morocco is the provision 
chamber for Gibraltar, and if Spain were to annex that 
boundary, England's great Mediterranean fortress would be 
neutralized, and her highway to India would be threatened. 
England knows this very well ; and Sultan Muley Hassan 
knows that in England's fear of Spain's acquiring his land, 
lies his only hope of independent existence. So he is con- 



560 GRANT'S TOUR. 

tent to allow the English Ambassador at his court to be 
popularly styled and to act as the "Vice-Emperor of Mo- 
rocco." Spain, again, has alwa^^s considered that Morocco 
sooner or later must belong to her, either as a province or 
a colony. She had temporary possession of the land after 
the war of 1859-60, and since then has had constant disa- 
greements with her African neighbor. A year ago, when 
a Spanish consular agent was murdered at Tehuan, war 
was only avoided by a humble apology on the part of the 
Sultan, and the mediation of England. The Spanish pa- 
pers and people demanded war at that time, and they are 
equally clamorous for it now. The result, unless England 
were to assist Sultan Muley Hassan, would prove disastrous 
to the Moroccans. If Spain is successful in finding a casus 
belli with Morocco, she will have the cards pretty well in 
her own hands. By declaring war she must compel Eng- 
land to active support of the Sultan, in order that the im- 
portance of Gibraltar shall not be diminished. If England 
refuse to assist Sultan Muley, Spain will find the conquest 
of Morocco an easy matter, and then with Morocco in her 
hands she can offer to exchange it for the Kock. Spanish 
national pride would then no longer be hurt by foreign 
occupation of her soil, and England would not have to give 
up the key to the Mediterranean and her highway to India. 
At any rate, events in Morocco are worthy of some atten- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

EX ROUTE FOE IRELAND ARRIVAL AT DUBLIN RECEP- 
TION BY THE LORD MAYOR BANQUET TO GENERAL 

GRANT BREAKFASTING WITH THE VICEROY BAN- 
QUET AT THE "mansion HOUSE " GENERAL GRANT's 

SPEECH THE REFUSAL OF CORK TO ENTERTAIN THE 

GENERAL THE REASONS GIVEN GENERAL SHER- 
MAN SPEAKS A VISIT TO LONDONDERRY THE FREE- 
DOM OF THE CITY DINING WITH THE MAYOR ■ 

SEEING THE SIGHTS RECEPTION AT BELFAST BACK 

TO DUBLIN FAREWELL SCENES OFF FOR LONDON 

PARIS RECEPTION GIVEN BY THE AMERICAN LEGA- 
TION PREPARING TO START FOR INDIA THE PARTY 

FAREWELL TO EUROPE — EN ROUTE FOR INDIA — 

THE END OF THE EUROPEAN JOURNEY. 

From Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, General Grant 
and liis party proceeded to Ireland, and reached Dublin 
on the 3d of January. Upon landing they were met by 
representatives of the city corporation, by whom they were 
warmly welcomed. They were at once driven to the Shel- 
bourne Hotel, where the General prepared to meet the 
Lord Mayor at the City Hall. " The city was full of stran- 
gers, and much enthusiasm was manifested when the Gen- 
eral and his party left their hotel to drive to the Mansion 
House. On arriving at the Mayor's official residence, they 
were cheered by a large crowd that had gathered to greet 
the illustrious ex-President. The Lord Mayor, in pre- 
senting the freedom of the city, referred to the cordiality 
always existing between America and Ireland, and hoped 
that in America General Grant would do everything he 
could "to help a people who sympathize with every Ameri- 

561 



532 GRANT'S TOUR 

can movement. The parchment, on which was engrossed 
the freedom of the city, was inclosed in an ancient bog oak 
casket. 

General Grant appeared to be highly impressed by the 
generous language of the Lord Mayor, He replied as fol- 
lows : — "I feel very proud of being made a citizen of the 
principal city of Ireland, and no honor that I have received 
has given me greater satisfaction. I am by birth the citi- 
zen of a country where there are more Irishmen, native 
born or by descent, than in all Ireland. When in office I 
had the honor — and it was a great one, indeed — of rep- 
resenting more Irishmen and descendants of Irishmen than 
does Her Majesty the Queen of England. I am not an 
eloquent speaker, and can simply thank you for the great 
courtesy you have shown me." Three cheers were given 
for General Grant at the close of his remarks, and then 
three more were added for the people of the United States. 

Mr, Isaac Butt, the well-known Home Rule member 
of Parliament, speaking as the first honorary freeman of 
the city, congratulated General Grant on having consoli- 
dated into peace and harmony the turbulent political and 
sectional elements over which he had triumphed as a soldier. 
His speech throughout was highly complimentary of the 
ex-President. 

Two hundred guests were present at the banquet given 
in honor of General Grant that evening. The Lord Mayor 
presided. General Noyes returned thanks for a toast to 
President Hayes' health. General Grant, replying to a 
toast to his own health, commented upon the cordiality of 
the popular reception accorded him. He believed and 
hoped that the trade depression in America would soon be 
over. He said Americans strove to be honest and to pay 
their way as they became prosperous ; so, also, would Eng- 
land. His speech was loudly cheered. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 5^3 

After this ex-President Grant, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Ba- 
deau visited the Royal Irish Academy, in Kildare Street, in 
company with Lord Mayor Barrington. Here, after some 
time spent in inspecting the treasures of ancient Irish art 
in gold, silver, and bronze, Saint Patrick's bell and sacred 
cross and O'Donnell's casque, the party went to the build- 
ing that was the old Parliament House. It is now the 
Bank of Ireland, and the walls which formerly echoed 
with the eloquence of Grattan, Curran, and Plunkett, now 
resound with the chaffering of the money-changers. Trin- 
ity College was then visited. The party was received by 
the Provost and Fellows, and escorted through the library, 
chapel, and halls of this venerable and majestic pile. 

General Grant drove to the viceregal lodge of the Duke 
of Marlborough, Phoenix Park, early in the afternoon, 
where he had a dejeuner with the Viceroy. He afterwards 
visited the Zoological Gardens, then returned to his hotel, 
where he rested a couple of hours. 

In the evening, a banquet was given him at the " Man- 
sion House." The company rose and gave the Irish wel- 
come when the General's name was proposed. The ex- 
President made in response the longest speech of his life, 
speaking in a clear voice, and being listened to with raf 
attention. He referred to himself as a fellow-citizen 
Dublin, and intimated, amid much laughter and cheerii,j^, 
that he might return to Dublin, one day, and run against 
Barrington for Mayor and Butt for Parliament. He 
warned those gentlemen that he was generally a trouble- 
some candidate. Then, passing to serious matters, the 
General said : — 

" We have heard some words spoken about our country — my 
country- — before I was naturalized in another. We have a very 
great country, a prosperous country, with room for a great many 
people. We have been suffering for some years from very great 



564 GRANT'S TOUR 

oppression. The world has felt it. There is no question about 
the fact that when you have forty-five millions of consumers 
such as we are, and when they are made to feel poverty, then the 
whole world must feel it. You have had here great prosperity, 
because of our great extravagance and our great misfortunes. 
We had a war which drew into it almost every man who could 
bear arms, and my friend who spoke so eloquently to you a few 
moments ago lost a leg in it. You did not observe that, perhaps, 
as he has a wooden one in place of it. When that great conflict 
was going on we were spending one thousand million dollars a 
year .more than we were producing, and Europe got every dollar 
of it. It made for you a false prosperity. You were getting 
our bonds and our promises to pay. You were cashing them 
yourselves. That made great prosperity, and made producers 
beyond the real necessities of the world at peace. Btit we finally 
got through that great conflict, and with an inflated currency 
which was far below the specie you use here. It made our people 
still more extravagant. Our speculations were going on, and we 
still continued to spend three or four hundred millions of mone}"- 
per year more than we were producing. We paid it back to jom 
for your labor and manufactures, and it made you apparently and 
really prosperous. We, on the other hand, were getting really 
poor, but being honest, however, we came to the day of solid, 
honest payment. We came down to the necessity of selling 
more than we bought. Now we have turned the corner. We 
have had our days of depression ; yours is j ast coming on. I 
hope it is nearly over. Our prosperity is commencing, and as we 
become prosperous you will, too, because we become increased 
consumers of your products as well as our own. I think it safe to 
say, that the United States, with a few years' more such prosperity, 
will consume as much more as they did. Two distinguished men 
have alluded to this subject — one was the President of the 
United States, and he said that the prosperity of the United 
States would be felt to the bounds of the civilized world. The 
other was Lord Beaconsfield, the most far-seeing man, the one 
who seems to me to see as far into the future as any man I know, 
and he says the same as President Hayes." 



AROUND THE WORLD, h^'S 

These words were received with, rounds of applause, 
and created a profound sensation. 

It had been the intention of General Grant to visit 
Cork, and the corporation of that city were informed of 
the fact. At a meeting of the City Council it was voted 
not to receive him. This decision produced a great sen- 
sation throughout Ireland, and aroused the just indignation 
of the populace. An ex-Mayor of Cork said, — 

" The obstructionists who opposed a cead mille failthe to 
General Grant are not worth a decent man rubbing up against. 
It is a pity that the General has determined to return to Paris 
instead of visiting Cork, where he would have received such an 
ovation from the self-respecting populace as would prove that 
the Irish heart beats in sympathy with America." 

The reason given for this strange procedure was that 
General Grant was strongly opposed to the Catholic re- 
ligion, and that he had raised the " no Popery " cry in 
America. As an enemy of their religion, the councilmen 
claimed that he was an enemy of their race. When the 
General read the speeches which had been made in the 
Council, he quietly remarked, " I am sorry that the 
Cork people know so little of American history." How 
much of an enemy to the Catholic religion General Grant 
is may be gathered from the following remarks by General 
Sherman : — 

" I have known General Grant for many years, and I do not 
recall a single instance in which prejudice upon religious matters 
ever had the slightest influence in the discharge of his official 
duties. Many of his intimate personal friends are Catholics, and 
during his residence in St. Louis his circle of acquaintances was 
almost altogether among families of the Catholic faith. He 
nominated Henry T. Blow for the Brazilian mission, a gentleman 
well known as a member of the Catholic Church, and one of his 
old acquaintances in St. Louis. I do not recall just now any 



566 GRANT'S TOUR 

other name, but it is 'bosh' to talk about General Grant insulting 
any one on account of his religious convictions. 

" The Des Moines speech," the General continued, " was 
prompted by a desire to defend the freedom of our public schools 
from sectarian influence, and, as I remember the conversation 
which led him to write that speech, it was because of the cease- 
less clamor for set religious exercises in the public schools ; not 
from Catholics, but from Protestant denominations. His son 
Fred married a Catholic lady, and his aunt, Mrs. Fred Dent, is a 
Catholic, so that I know there is no prejudice in the General's 
mind, such, at least, as he is accused of harboring against a class 
of people many of whom are his particular friends. 

" How strangely the action of the authorities of Cork contrasts 
with the conduct of the late Pius IX. you can best judge when I 
relate this incident : — In the latter part of the winter of 1872, 1 
was visiting Eome with Colonel Audenreid and young Fred 
Grant. We were at a reception given by Mr. Healy, the artist, 
and among the Americans who called to pay their respects was 
Dr. Chatard, President of the American college in Rome and 
now Bishop of the Diocese of Yincennes, Ind. Dr. Chatard ex- 
tended to me a cordial invitation to call upon the Holy Father, 
and the invitation included Colonel Audenreid and Fred. The 
next day, according to appointment, we went to St. Peter's, and 
withovit delay were shown to the special audience chamber. The 
Pope, after our reception, invited us to accompany him in his 
rounds to a number of business apartments in the Vatican, and 
while we were walking he said to me, — 

" ' I understand you have in your party a son of your great 
soldier and President. Why is he not with you? ' 

" I replied that the President's son was in Rome, but that he 
was unwell and not able to accompany me on this visit. The 
Holy Father continued: — 'I regret very much his illness, and 
more so because, in the absence of the father, for whom I have 
the highest respect, I would rejoice to meet his son. You will 
please convey to him my kindest wishes, and, if agreeable, I 
trust he will not leave Rome without coming to see me.' 

"On returning to our quarters I told Fred of the special in- 
quiry the Pope had made for him, and on the following day he 



AROUND THE WORLD. 567 

went to tlie Vatican, was received most cordially by tlie Holy 
Father, and brought away not only the blessing of the head of 
the Catholic Church for his father and mother, but numerous 
souvenirs which Pius IX. gave to him for his friends at home. 
It is fair to presume that the Pope is quite as good a judge of 
men as the authorities of the city of Cork, and that the esteem 
in which General Grant was held by one so universally beloved 
by the Catholic people of the whole world as Pius IX. will show 
the folly of the mistake which a few of the children of that 
faith have made in accusing General Grant of bigotry and in- 
tolerance." 

On Monday, January 8th, General Grant and his party 
left Dublin for Londonderry and Belfast. The Lord Mayor 
accompanied them to the railway-station, and bade them 
farewell. The morning was cold, and as the train pro- 
gressed northward ice, snow, cold winds, and, finally, rain, 
were encountered. At Dundalk, Omagh, Strabane, and 
other stations, large crowds were assembled, and the people 
cheered the ex-President, putting their hands into the cars 
and shaking hands with him whenever possible. The ex- 
pressions of ill-feeling towards General Grant in Cork had 
aroused the Protestant sentiments of the Irish people of 
Ulster in his favor. 

At two o'clock the train reached Derry. A heavy rain 
had covered the ground with ice, rendering the view of the 
city and surroundings most charming, as seen through the 
mists and gossamer of falling snow. At the station an 
immense crowd, apparently the whole town and neighbor- 
hood, had assembled. The multitude was held in check 
by the police. The Mayor welcomed General Grant cor- 
dially, and he left the station amid great cheering. 

The great majority of the crowd cheered madly, and 
followed General Grant's carriage to the hotel. The ships 
in the harbor were decorated with flags and streamers, and 
the town was en fete. A remarkably cold, driving rain set 



5G0 GJ^AA^T'S TOUR 

in at three o'clock, just as General Grant and his party 
drove in state to the ancient town hall. The crowd was 
so dense near the hall that progress through it was made 
with great difficulty. At the entrance of the building the 
Mayor and Council, in their robes of office, received the 
ex-President. Amid many expressions of enthusiasm from 
the people of Londonderry, an address was read extolling 
the military and civil career of General Grant, which was 
pronounced second in honor only to that of Washington. 

General Grant signed the roll, thus making himself an 
Ulster Irishman. He then made a brief address. He 
said that no incident of his trip was more pleasant than 
accepting citizenshi23 at the hands of the representatives 
of this ancient and honored city, with whose history the 
peo|)le of America were so familiar. He regretted that 
his stay in Ireland would be so brief. He had originally 
intended embarking from Queenstown direct for the United 
States, in which case he would have remained a much 
longer time on the snug little island ; but, having resolved 
to visit India, he was compelled to make his stay short. He 
could not, however, he said in conclusion, return home 
without seeing Ireland and a people in whose welfare the 
j)eople of the United States took so deep an interest. 

The General then returned to his hotel, making a short 
visit at the house of Consul Livermore en route. In the 
evening a dinner was given him by the Mayor of the city, 
at which all the leading citizens of the province of Ulster 
were present. The reception of the ex-President was en- 
thusiastic and cordial in the extreme. General Grant, in 
response to a toast, made a brief speech, saying that he 
should have felt that his tour in Europe was incomplete 
had he not seen the ancient and illustrious city of Lon- 
donderry, whose history was so well known throughout 
America. Indeed, the people of Derry and all about there 



AROUND THE WORLD. 5G9 

had iiad a remarkable influence upon the development of 
American character. He cordially welcomed to the United 
States all the Irishmen who chose to make their homes 
there, and this was a welcome shared by the American 
people. 

Minister Noyes made a speech of the same general 
tenor, and at eleven o'clock the company separated. On 
the following morning the General strolled about the city, 
looking at the historic walls, visiting Walker's pillar. Roar- 
ing Meg, and other curiosities of the place. Soon after, 
the party, accompanied by Sir Hervey Bruce, Lieutenant 
of the county ; Mr. T^aylor, M. P. for Coleraine, and other 
local magnates, set out for Belfast. A cold rain and mists 
coming from the Northern Ocean, obscured the wonderful 
view of the northern Irish coast. The General studied 
the country closely, remarking on the sparseness of popu- 
lation, and saying he could see no evidence of the presence 
of 7,000,000 of people in Ireland. 

At every station there were crowds assembled, and when 
the cars stopped, the people rushed forward to shake hands 
with the General. Some were old soldiers who had been 
in . the American army. One remarked that Grant had 
captured him in Paducah. Another asked General Grant 
to give him a shilling in remembrance of old times. The 
people were all kindly, cheering for Grant and America. 
At Coleraine there was an immense crowd. Grant, ac- 
companied by the Member of Parliament, Mr. Taylor, left 
the cars, entered the waiting-room at the depot, and received 
an address. In reply General Grant repeated the hope and 
belief expressed in his Dublin speech, that the period of 
depression was ended, and that American prosperity was 
aiding Irish prosperity. At Ballymoney, there was another 
crowd. As the train neared Belfast, a heavy rain began 
to fall. 



570 GRANT'S TOUR 

The train reached Belfast station at half-past two 
o'clock. The reception accorded General Grant was im- 
posing and extraordinary. The linen and other mills had 
stopped work, and the workmen stood out in the rain in 
thousands. From the train- window, Grant saw a perfect 
sea of heads, which showed the eagerness of the people 
to honor the distinguished traveller. The platform of the 
station was covered with scarlet carpet. The Mayor and 
members of the City Council welcomed the General, who 
descended from the car amid tremendous cheers. Crowds 
ran after the carriages containing the city authorities and 
their illustrious guest, and afterwards surrounded the hotel 
where the General was entertained. 

Belfast might be said to have been en fete, the public 
buildings were draped with American and English colors, 
and in a few instances with Orange flags. 

Luncheon was served at four o'clock, and the crowd 
with undaunted valor remained outside amid a heavy snow- 
storm and cheered at intervals. The feature of the lunch- 
eon was the presence of the Boman Catholic Bishop of 
the diocese, who was given the post of honor. The lunch- 
eon party numbered one hundred and seventy — the 
Mayor said he could have had fi.ve thousand. 

The Belfast speakers made cordial allusions to many 
people in America, and were anxious to have Grant de- 
clare himself in favor of free trade, but the General in his 
reply made no allusions to the subject, to the disappoint- 
ment of many of those present. Minister Noyes made a 
hit in his speech when he said that General Grant showed 
his appreciation of Belfast men by appointing A. T. Stew- 
art, of Belfast, Secretary of the Treasury, and offering 
George H. Stuart, a Belfast boy, the portfolio of Secretary 
of the Navy. 

After the luncheon was over, General Grant remained 



AROUND THE WORLD. 571 

quietly in his apartments, receiving many calls, some from 
old soldiers who served under liim during the war. 

On the following morning General Grant and his party 
visited several of the large mills and industrial establish- 
ments of the city. Before he left the hotel he was waited 
on by a number of the leading citizens and several clergy- 
men. Bishop Ryan, the Catholic Bishop of Buffalo, and 
Mr. Cronin, editor of the Catholic Union, were among the 
callers and had a pleasant interview. The General then 
drove to the warehouses of several merchants in the linen 
trad^e, to the factories and shipyards. At the immense 
shipyard where the White Star steamers were built, the 
workmen, numbering 2,000, gathered around Grant's car- 
riage and cheered as they ran alongside. The public 
buildings and many of the shops were decorated. The 
weather was clear and cold. 

At three o'clock in the afternoon the General left for 
Dublin. Immense crowds had gathered at the hotel and 
at the railway-station. The Mayor, with Sir John Preston 
and the American Consul, James M. Donnan, accompanied 
the General to the depot. As the train moved off the 
crowd gave tremendous cheers, the Mayor taking the 
initiative. One Irishman in an advanced stage of en- 
thusiasm called out, "Three cheers for Oliver Cromwell 
Grant ! " To this there was only a faint response. 

At Portadown, Dundalk, Drogheda, and other stations, 
there were immense crowds, the populations apparently 
turning out en masse. Grant was loudly cheered, and 
thousands surrounded the car with the hope of being able 
to shake the General by the hand, all wishing him a safe 
journey. One little girl created considerable merriment 
by asking the General to give her love to her aunt in 
America. At Dundalk, the brother of Robert Nugent, 
who was lieutenant-colonel of the Sixty-ninth New York 



572 GRANT'S TOUR 

Kegiment in 1861, and afterwards commander of a brigade 
in the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, said he was 
glad to welcome his brother's old commander. 

Upon reaching Dublin, Lord Mayor Barrington and a 
considerable number of persons were on the platform at the 
railway-station, and cordially welcomed the General. As 
soon as all the party had descended, the Lord Mayor in- 
vited the General into his carriage and drove him to West- 
ward Row, where the Irish mail-train was ready to depart, 
having been detained eight minutes for the ex-President. 

There was a most cordial farewell, and a great shaking 
of hands. The Mayor and his friends begged Grant to 
return soon and make a longer stay. Soon Kingston was 
reached, and in a few minutes the party were in the special 
cabin which had been provided for them on board the mail- 
steamer. S23ecial attention was paid to the General by the 
officers of the vessel. Grant left the Irish shores at twenty 
minutes past seven o'clock. 

London was duly reached, and the travellers became the 
guests of the American Minister, Mr. Welsh. 

After a brief stay in London, General Grant went to 
Paris, where, on the 14th of January, he was tendered with 
a grand dinner and reception at the United States Legation. 
On the next day, a grand dinner and reception was given 
in his honor by Marshal MacMahon, at the Palais d' Elysee. 
Among those present were General Grant and family, M. 
Waddington and wife. General Noyes and wife, Miss King, 
Miss Stevens, the members of the Chinese Embassy, the rep- 
resentatives of San Salvador, Buenos Ayres, Chili, Guate- 
mala, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, and many French 
generals and admirals. 

On the 21st, General Grant, accompanied by Mrs. Grant, 
Colonel Fred. Grant, ex-Secretary of the Navy A. E. Borie, 
of Philadelphia; Dr. Keating, and Mr. Young, left Paris 



AROUND THE WORLD. 573 

for a tour in the East. These intend to accompany him 
through his entire trip. General Bacleau went with them 
as far as Marseilles. Generals Noyes and Fairchild, Sec- 
retary Hill, and a large number of Americans, went to 
the station to see the party off. The train left at a quarter 
past seven. 

General Grant and his party arrived at Marseilles on 
the 23d, and Consul John B. Gould received them at the 
railway-station. An afternoon reception was held at the 
consulate, where General Grant met the leading citizens 
of Marseilles. At noon, on the day following, the party 
embarked on the French steamship Labourdonais for 
India via Suez. General Badeau, Consul Gould, J. B. 
Lippincott, of Philadelphia; John Munroe, the banker, 
and many citizens took leave of General and Mrs. Grant. 
The day was cold, and the sky was filled with masses of 
gray cloud. The people of Marseilles evinced great inter- 
est in the General's departure. The ships in the harbor 
were dressed with flags and streamers. General Grant and 
his party seemed in the best of health and spirits. The 
steamer nioved out of the harbor shortly after twelve 
o'clock, and the land journey of General Grant closed 
amid the kindest manifestations of his countrymen at 
Marseilles, and the French citizens of this great Mediter- 
ranean port. Marshal MacMahon sent orders to the French 
admirals on foreign stations and to the governors of French 
colonies to treat General Grant with all the honors due to 
the head of an independent state. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE PASSAGE FEOM MARSEILLES TO ALEXANDRIA DOWN 

THE RED SEA ADEN BOMBAY THE RECEPTION OF 

GENERAL GRANT LIFE IN INDIA A VISIT TO THE 

CAVES OF ELEPHANTA RECEPTION AT THE GOVERN- 
MENT HOUSE FAREWELL TO BOMBAY ARRIVAL AT 

JEYPORE THE MAHARAJAH's RECEPTION A NAUTCH 

DANCE VISIT TO THE ANCIENT PALACE OF AMBER 

THE HOME OF AN ANCIENT INDIAN KING AN INTEREST- 
ING OCCASION. 

The voyage from Marseilles to Bombay was a pleasant 
one. Like a thing of life the vessel bearing the travellers 
danced upon the crested waves of the Mediterranean. As 
they passed along, Etna was seen towering in the distance, 
with villages nestling at its base. After skirting along the 
African coast, they disembarked near Alexandria. A short 
ride by rail brought them to the Suez Canal, where they 
took passage on another boat, called the Venetia, and pro- 
ceeded on their way down the Red Sea. The journey at 
this point is one of great interest, since the banks of that 
Sea are hallowed by the footsteps of the Israelites. Many 
points of historic interest were pointed out, among which 
Mount Sinai was, perhaps, the most important. 

The vessel touched at Aden just long enough to allow 
the travellers to mail their letters, and then quietly passed 
on towards Bombay. Their arrival at the latter point is 
thus narrated : — Our departure from Europe had been so 
sudden that we had no idea that even our Consul at Bom- 
bay knew of our coming. All arrangements were made to 
go to a hotel, and from thence make our journey ; but the 

574 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



577 



Venetia had scarcely entered the harhor before we saw evi- 
dences that the General was expected. Ships in the harbor 
were dressed with flags, and at the wharf was a large crowd 
— soldiers, natives, Enropeans. As we passed the English 
flag-ship, a boat came alongside with an officer represent- 
hig Admiral Corbett, welcoming the General to India. In 
a few minutes came another boat bearing Captain Frith, 
the military aid to Sir Kichard Temple, Governor of the 




^it^fe* 




THE SUEZ CANAL. 



Presidency of Bombay. Captain Frith bore a letter from 
the Governor, welcoming the General to Bombay, and 
offering him the use of the Government House at Malabar 
Point. Captain Frith expressed the regret of Sir Richard, 
that he could not be in Bombay to meet General Grant, but 
duties connected with the Afghan war kept him in Sind. 
The Consul, Mr. Farnham, also came with a delegation of 
American residents and welcomed the General and party. 



34 



578 



GRANT'S TOUR 



At nine o'clock in the morning tlie last farewells were 
spoken, we took our leave of the many kind and pleasant 
friends we had made on the Venetia, and went on board 
the Government yacht. Our landing was at the Apollo 
Bunder — the spot where the Prince of Wales landed. 
The tides in the harbor are high, and there were stone 
steps over which the sea had been washing. As we drew 
near the shore, there was an immense crowd lining the 





THE 



FRANCE TO- THE SUEZ CANAL. 



wharf and a company of Bombay volunteers in line. As 
the General ascended the steps he was met by Brigadier- 
General Aitcheson, commanding the forces; Sir Francis 
Souter, Commissioner of Police ; Mr. Grant, the Municipal 
Commissioner, and Colonel Sexton, commanding the Bom- 
bay volunteers, all of whom gave him a hearty welcome 
to India. The volunteers presented arms, the band played 
our national air, and the General, amid loud cheers from 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



579 



tlie Europeans present, walked slowly with uncovered head 
to the state carriage. Accompanied by Captain Frith, who 
represented the Governor, and attended by an escort of 
native cavalry, the General and party made off to Malabar 
Point. 

Our home in Bombay is at the Government House, on 
Malabar Point, in the suburbs of the city. Malabar 
Point was in other days a holy place of the Hindoos. 




MOUNT SINAI. 



Here was a temple, and it was also believed that if those 
who had sinned made a pilgrimage to the rocks there 
would be expiation or regeneration of soul. The Portu- 
guese who came to India were breakers of images, who 
believed that the religion of Christ was best served by the 
destruction of the pagan temples. Among the temples 
which were subjected to their pious zeal was one on INIala- 
bar Point. There are only the ruins remaining, and masses 
of rock, bearing curious inscriptions, lie on the hillside. 



580 GRANT'S TOUR . • 

Malabar Point is an edge of the island of Bombay jutting 
out into the Indian Ocean. Where the bluff overlooks the 
waters it is one hundred feet high. This remnant of the 
rock has been rescued from the sea and storm and deco- 
rated with trees and shrubbery, the mango and the palm. 
Overlooking the sea is a battery with five large guns, shin- 
ing and black, looking out upon the ocean and keeping 
watch over the Empire of England. It is difficult to de- 
scribe a residence like the Government House on Malabar 
Point. Architecture is simply a battle- with the sun. The 
house is a group of houses. As you drive in the grounds, 
through stone gates that remind you of the porters' lodges 
at some stately English mansions, you pass through an 
avenue of mango trees, past beds of flowers throwing out 
their delicate fragrance on the warm morning air. You 
come to a one-storied house surrounded with spacious 
verandas. There is a wide state entrance covered with 
red cloth. A guard is at the foot, a native guard wearing 
the English scarlet, on his shoulders the number indicating 
the regiment. You pass up the stairs, a line of servants 
on either side. The servants are all Mohammedans ; they 
wear long scarlet gowns, with white turbans ; on the breast 
is a belt with an imperial crown for an escutcheon. They 
salute you with the grave, submissive grace of the East, 
touching the forehead and bending low the head, in token 
of welcome and duty. You enter a hall and pass between 
two rooms — large, high, decorated in blue and white, and 
look out upon the gardens below, the sea beyond, and the 
towers of Bombay. One of these rooms is the state dining- 
room, large enough to dine fifty people. The other is the 
state drawing-room. This house is only used for ceremo- 
nies, meals, and receptions. 

You pass for one hundred paces under a covered way 
over a path made of cement and stone, through flower-beds 



AROUND THE WORLD. 581 

and palm-trees, and come to another house. Here are the 
principal bedrooms and private chambers. This also is 
one story high and runs down to the sea, so that you can 
stand on a balcony and throw a biscuit into the white surf 
as it combs the shore. These are the apartments assigned 
to General Grant and his wife. There are drawing-rooms, 
anterooms, chambers, the walls high, the floors covered 
with rugs and cool matting. As you pass in, servants, 
who are sitting crouched around on the floors, rise up and 
bend the head. You note a little group of shoes at the 
door, and learn that in the East custom requires those in 
service to unslipper themselves before entering the house 
of a master. Another hundred paces and you come to 
another house, with wide verandas, somewhat larger than 
the General's. These are the guest chambers, and here a 
part of our party reside. 

On Friday evening, the General visited the ball of the 
Volunteer Corps, and was received by Colonel Sexton. 
The ballroom was profusely decorated with flags — the 
American flag predominating. On Saturday, at two, he 
visited Dossabhoy Merwanjee, a Parsee merchant. The 
reception was most cordial, the ladies of the family deco- 
rating the General and party with wreaths of jessamine 
flowers. • • In the afternoon he drove to the Byculla Club, 
lunched, and looked at the races. In the evening there 
was a state dinner at the Government House, with forty- 
eight guests. The Government band played during dinner. 
The member of Council, Hon. James Gibbs, who repre- 
sents the Governor, was in the chair. At the close of the 
dinner he proposed the health of the General, who arose 
amid loud cheering, and said that he was now carrying out 
a wish he had long entertained of visiting India and the 
countries of the ancient world. His reception in Bombay 
had been most gratifying. The cordiality of the people, 



582 GRANT'S TOUR 

tlie princely hospitality of the Governor, the kindness of 
the members of the household, all combined to make him 
feel the sincerity of the welcome. It was only a contin- 
uance of the friendliness he had met in Europe, and which 
was especially grateful to him because it indicated a friendly 
feeling towards his own country. In this spirit he accej^ted 
it, for he knew of nothing that would go further towards 
insuring peace to all nations, and with peace the bless- 
ings of civilization, than a perfect understanding between 
Englishmen and Americans, the great English-speaking 
nations of the world. The General said he hoped he 
might see his hosts in America. He would be most happy 
to meet them and return the hospitality he had received. 
He was sorry he could not see Sir Kichard Temple, the 
Governor of Bombay, of whom he had heard a great deal, 
and whom he was anxious to meet. But he would ask 
them to join with him in drinking the health of the Gov- 
ernor. This sentiment was drunk with all the honors. 
The dinner was finally served, and after dinner the General 
and guests strolled about on the veranda smoking or chat- 
ting, looking out on the calm and murmuring ocean that 
rolled at their feet, and the lights of the city beyond. 
There was a luncheon with Sir Michael B. Westropp, Chief 
Justice of Bombay. Sunday was spent quietly at .home. 

During their stay at Bombay, the j^ai^ty visited the cele- 
brated caves of Elej)hanta. The correspondent thus de- 
scribes the visit : — We have a cooling breeze coming in 
from the Indian Ocean, and as we slowly climb easy flights 
of steps we have an almost naked retinue of Hindoos, in 
various stages of squalor, asking alms and offering to sell 
us gold beetles. The temples are reached in time, and we 
stroll about studying out the figures, noting the columns 
and the curious architecture, full, rude, massive, unlike any 
forms of architectural art familiar to us. The main temple 



AROUND THE WORLD. 583 

is 125 feet long, and the same in width. The idols are 
hewn out of the rock. The faces of some are comely, and 
there is a EurojDean expression in the features that startles 
you. The type is a higher one than those we saw in Egypt. 
One of the idols is supposed to be the Hindoo Trinity — 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. There is matter for thought 
in the fact that the idea of the trinity, of the holiest of 
holy mysteries, was somehow grasped by these pagan 
worlds long before our blessed Lord came among men. 
There is a figure of a woman with a single breast — the 
wife of Siva — and you note in these pagan faiths that 
woman, who holds so sad a place in their domestic economy, 
was worshipped as fervently as some of us worship the 
Virgin. It is the tribute which even the heathen pays, 
as if by instinct, to the supreme blessing of maternity. 
But when the Portuguese came with the sword and the 
cross, little mercy was shown to the homes of the j)agan 
gods. It is believed that these temples were cut out of the 
rocks in the tenth century, and that for 800 years these 
stony emblems, which we finger and poke with canes, were 
worshipped. General Grant observes that his memories 
of Karnak make it difficult for him to appreciate the 
caves at their true value. So we saunter about, and look 
out on the waters, and watch the descending sun throw its 
purple, golden shadows over Bombay. The night is fall- 
ing as our launch pushes into the bay. In this land there 
is no twilight, and a few minutes after the sun goes down 
darkness reigns, darkness over everything, only the lights 
of the distant town, and the stars looking down from a 
cloudless sky. 

On Monday the General was entertained in state at the 
Government House, at Malabar Point. Hon. James Gibbs, 
the member of the Council who acted as Governor in the 
absence of Sir Bichard Temple, presided, and at the close 



584 GRANT'S TOUR 

of the dinner, tlie company drank the heaUh of the Gen- 
eral. In response, the General referred to the kindness he 
had received in India, which was only renewing the kind- 
ness shown him all over Europe, and which he accepted 
as an evidence of the good-will which really existed be- 
tween Englishmen and Americans, and which was, to his 
mind, the best assurance of peace for all nations. After 
the dinner the General received a large number of the 
native merchants and gentlemen of Bombay. It seemed 
odd to our American eyes that merchants and gentlemen 
should be asked to come in at the end of a feast and not 
to take part. But this exclusion is their own wish. Many 
of these merchants and gentlemen belong to castes who 
look on the food of the Europeans as unclean, who believe 
in the sacredness of life, and will not eat animal food, and 
who could not sit at the ' table with the General without 
losing caste. These men will meet you in business, will 
serve you in various ways, but their religion prevents their 
sharing your table. So the invitation to the natives to 
meet the General was fixed at an hour when dinner was 
over. 

They came in groups — Hindoos, Arabs, Parsees, native 
officers — in uniforms, in quaint flowing costumes. The 
General stood at the head of the hallway, with Mr. Gibbs 
and Major Bivett-Carnac, the Governor's military secretary. 
As each native advanced he was presented to the General 
with some word of history or compliment from Mr. Gibbs. 
"This is So-and-So, an eminent Brahmin scholar, who stands 
high among our barristers ; " or, " This is So-and-So, a 
Parsee merchant, who has done a great deal of good to 
Bombay, and has been knighted for his services by the 
Queen;" or, " This is the oldest Arab merchant;" or, "This 
is a gallant officer in our native cavalry ; " or, " This is the 
leading diamond merchant in Bombay, a Hindoo gentle- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 585 

man, one of the richest in India." As each of them ad- 
vanced it was with folded hands, as in prayer, or saluting 
by touching the breast and brow in the submissive, graceful, 
bending way, so strange to our eyes. Here were men of 
many races — the Parsee from Persia, the Arab from Cairo, 
whose ancestors may have ridden with Omar ; the Brahmin 
of a holy caste, in whose veins runs the stainless blood of 
Indian nobility, descendant of men who were priests and 
rulers ages before England had risen from her clouds of 
barbarism. Between these races there is no love. If they 
do not like England, they hate one another. Religious dif- 
ferences, tradition, memories of war and conquest, the un- 
accountable antipathies of race which we have not elimi- 
nated from our civilization — all generate a fierce animosity 
which would break into flames, once the restraining hand 
were lifted. What welds them together is the power of 
England, and as you look at this picturesque group — 
their heads, full eyes, their fin€ Asiatic type of face, clear 
and well cut '■ — here assembled peacefully, you see the ex- 
tent of the empire to which they all owe allegiance, and 
you admire the genius and courage which has brought them 
to submit to a rule which, whatever it may have been in 
the past, grows more and more beneficent. 

This dinner at Malabar Point closed our visit to Bora- 
bay. After the reception of the native gentlemen and 
merchants, the General strolled over to his bungalow, and, 
sitting on the veranda looking out upon the ocean, he sat 
and conversed for a long time with Mr. Gibbs, Major 
Carnac, Mr. Borie, and the gentlemen of the household. 

On 'Tuesday, we left Bombay. The day was very 
warm — oppressively warm. We had an idea . of what 
might be felt in an Indian summer. The General drove 
into town and made some farewell calls. At five, he left 
the Government House in a state carriage, accompanied 



586 GRANT'S TOUR 

by Major Carnac, who represented Governor Temple, and 
escorted by a squadron of cavalry. On arriving at the 
station, there was a guard of honor of native infantry 
drawn up, which presented arms and lowered colors. All 
the leading men of the Bombay government — Parsee and 
native merchants ; our Consul, Mr. Farnham, whose kind- 
ness to us was untiring ; Mr. Gibbs, and all the members 
of the Government household — were present. Among 
those who came to say good-by was Colonel H. S. Olcott, 
of New York. Colonel Olcott had just arrived in India, 
where he proposes to study Indian philosophy. He was 
accompanied by some Brahmins of high caste, whom he 
presented to the General. In a few minutes the signal 
for leaving was made, and the General thanking his good 
friends of Malabar Point, the train pushed off amid cheers 
and the salutes of the military. 

From Bombay they went to Jeypoor. One of the party 
writes : — Our ride was through a low, uninteresting country, 
broken by ranges of hills. The railway is narrow gauge, 
and, as I learned from one of the managers who accom- 
panied us, has j)roved a success, and strengthens the argu- 
ments in favor of the narrow gauge system. It was night 
before we reached Jeypoor. On arriving at the station, 
the Maharajah was present with his Ministers, and the 
English Resident, Dr. Hendley, who acted in place of 
Colonel Beynon. As the General descended, the Maha- 
rajah, who wore the ribbon and star of the Order of India, 
advanced and shook hands, welcoming him to his domin- 
ions. The Maharajah is a small, rather fragile person, 
with a serious, almost a painful expression of countenance, 
but an intelligent, keen face. He looked like a man of 
sixty. His movements were slow, impassive — the move- 
ments of old age. This may be a mannerism, however ; 
for, on studying his face, you could see that there is some 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



587 



youth in it. On his brow were the crimson emblems of 
his caste — the warrior caste of Rajpootana. His High- 
ness does not speak English, although he understands it, 
and our talk was through an interpreter. After the ex- 
change of courtesies and a few moments' conversation, the 
General drove off to the English residency, accompanied 
by a company of Jeypoor cavalry. The residency is some 
distance from the station. It is a fine, large mansion, sur- 
rounded by a park and garden. 




THE MAHARAJAH'S STANDARD-BEARER. 

The next day after our arrival there was a reception 
at the royal palace. We drove to the palace at four 
o'clock, and were shown the royal stables. There were 
some fine horses and exhibitions of horsemanship), which 
astonished even the General. We were shown the astro- 
nomical buildings of Jai Singh II., which were on a large 
scale and accurately graded. We climbed to the top of 



588 



GRANT'S TOUR 



the palace and had a fine view of Jeypoor. The palace 
itself embraces one-sixth of the city, and there are 10,000 
people within its walls — beggars, soldiers, priests, poli- 
ticians, all manner of human beings — who live on the 
royal bounty. The town looked picturesque and cool in 
the shadows of the descending sun. We looked at the 
quarters devoted to the household. All was dead. Every 
part of the palace swarmed with life except this. Word 




THE MAHAKAJAH'S CHIEF MUSICIAN. 



had been sent to the household that profane eyes would 
soon be gazing from the towers, and the ladies went into 
seclusion. We strolled from building to building — re- 
ception-rooms, working-rooms, billiard-rooms, high walled,, 
far apart, with stone walls and gardens all around ; sj^ace, 
air, and sunshine. His Highness had arisen this morning 
earlier than usual, to have his prayers finished in time to 
meet the General. At five precisely we entered the court- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 589 

yard leading to the recej)tion hall. The Maharajah came 
slowly down the steps with a serious, preoccupied air ; not 
as an old man, but as one who was too weary with a day's 
labors to make any effort, and shook hands with the Gen- 
eral and Mrs. Grant. He accompanied the General to a 
seat of honor and sat down at his side. We all ranged 
ourselves in the chairs. On the side of the General sat 
the members of his party ; on the side of the Maharajah, 
the members of his cabinet. Dr. Hendley acted as inter- 
preter. The Prince said Jeypoor was honored in seeing 
the face of the great American ruler, whose fame had 
reached Hindostan. The General said he had enjoyed 
his visit ; that he was pleased and surprised with the pros- 
perity of the people, and that he should have felt he had 
lost a great deal if he had come to India and not have 
seen Jeyj)oor. The Maharajah expressed regret that the 
General made so short a stay. The General answered 
that he came to India late, and was rather j^ressed for 
time, from the fact that he mshed to see the Viceroy 
before he left Calcutta, and to that end had promised to 
be in Calcutta on March 10. 

His Highness then made a gesture, and a troop of danc- 
ing-girls came into the court-yard. One of the features of 
a visit to Jeypoor is what is called the Nautch. The Nautch 
is a sacred affair, danced by Hindoo girls of a low caste, in 
the presence of the idols in the palace temple. A group 
of girls came trooping in, under the leadership of an old 
fellow with a long beard and a hard expression of face, 
who might have been the original of Dickens' Fagin. The 
girls wore heavy garments embroidered, the skirts com- 
posed of many folds, covered with gold braid. They had 
ornaments on their heads, and jewels in the side of the nose. 
They had plain faces, and carried out the theory of caste, 
if there be anything in such a theory, in the contrast be- 



590 GRANT'S TOUR 

tween their features and the delicate, sharply cut lines of the 
higher class Brahmins and the other castes who surrounded 
the Prince. The girls formed in two lines, a third line w^as 
cpmposed of four musicians, who performed a low, growling 
kind of music on unearthly instruments. The dance had 
no value in it, either as an expression of harmony, grace, 
or motion. What it may have been as an act of devotion 
according to the Hindoo faith, I could not judge. One of 
the girls would advance a step or two, and then turn around. 
Another would go through the same. This went dow^n the 
double line, the instruments keeping up their constant din. 
Then we strolled into the gardens and looked at the 
|)alace towers, which the Prince took pleasure in showing 
the General, and which looked airy and beautiful in the 
rosy shadows of the descending sun. There were beds of 
flowers and trees, and the coming night, which comes so 
swiftly in these latitudes, brought a cooling breeze. Then 
his Highness gave us each a photograph of his royal person 
consecrated with his royal autograph, which he wrote on 
the top of a marble railing. Then we strolled towards the 
grand hall of ceremony to take our leave. Taking leave 
is a solemn act in India. We entered the spacious hall 
where the Prince received the Prince of Wales. Night 
had come so rapidly that servants came in all directions 
carrying candles and torches that lit up the gaudy and 
glittering hall. An attendant carried a tray bearing 
wreaths of the rose and jessamine. The Maharajah, tak- 
ing two of these wreaths, j)ut them on the neck of the Gen- 
eral. He did the same to Mrs. Grant and all the members 
of the party. Then, taking a string of gold and silken 
cord, he placed that on Mrs. Grant as a special honor. 
The General, who was instructed by the English Resident, 
took four wreaths and put them on the neck of the Ma- 
harajah, who pressed his hands and bowed his thanks. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 591 

Anotlier servant came, bearing a small cup of gold and 
gems containing ottar of roses. The Maharajah, putting 
some of the perfume on his fingers, transferred it to Mrs. 
Grant's handkerchief With another portion he passed 
his hands along the General's breast and shoulders. This 
was done to each of the party. The General, then taking 
the perfume, passed his hands over the Maharajah's 
shoulders, and so concluded the ceremony which in all 
royal interviews in the East is supposed to mean a lasting- 
friendship. Then the Prince, taking General Grant's hand 
in his own, led him from the hall, across the garden and to 
the gateway of his palace, holding his hand all the time. 
Our carriages were waiting, and the Prince took his leave, 
saying how much he was honored by the General's visit. 
The cavalry escort formed in line, the guard presented 
arms, and we drove at a full gallop to our home. And so 
ended one of the most interesting and eventful days in our 
visit to India. 

During their stay at Jeypoor, a visit was paid to the 
ancient palace of Amber. The correspondent of the party 
thus describes the visit : — To go to Amber we must ride ele- 
phants, for after a few miles the hills come, and the roads 
are broken, and carriages are of no value. We might go 
on horseback, or on camels, but the Maharajah has sent us 
his elephants, and here they are, waiting for us under a 
grove of mango trees, drawn up on the side of the road as 
if to salute. The principal elephant wears a scarlet cloth 
as a special honor to the General. The elephant means 
authority in India, and when you wish to do your guest 
the highest honor, you mount him on an ele^ohant. The 
Maharajah also sent sedan-chairs for those of us who pre- 
ferred an easier and swifter conveyance. Mrs. Grant chose 
the sedan-chair, and was switched off at a rapid pace up 
the ascending road by four Hindoo bearers. The j)ace at 



592 GRANT'S TOUR 

which these chairs is carried is a short, measured quickstep, 
so that there is no uneasiness to the rider. The rest of us 
mounted the elej)hants. Elephant-riding is a curious and 
not an unpleasant experience. The animal is under jDerfect 
control, and very often, especially in the case of such a man 
as the ruler of Jeypoor, has been for generations in the 
same family. The elephant is under the care of a driver, 
called a mahout. The mahout sits on the neck, or more 
properly the head, of the elephant, and guides him with a 
stick, or sharj^ iron prong, with which he strikes the animal 
on the top of the head. Between the elephant and mahout 
there are relations of affection. The mahout lives with the 
elej^hant, gives him his food, and each animal has its own 
keeper. The huge creature becomes in time as docile as a 
kitten, and will obey any order of the mahout. The ele- 
phant reaches a great age. The one assigned to me had 
been sixty years in the royal stables. It is not long since 
there died at Calcutta the elephant which carried Warren 
Hastings when Governor-ioreneral of India — a century ago. 
There are two methods of riding elephants. One is in a 
box like the four seats of a carriage, the other on a square 
quilted seat, your feet hanging over the sides, something 
like an Irish jaunting-car. The first plan is good for hunt- 
ing, but for comfort the second is the better. When we 
came to our elephant, the huge beast, at a signal from the 
mahout, slowly kneeled. Then a step-ladder was put against 
his side, and we mounted into our seats. Two of the party 
were assigned to an elephant, and we sat in lounging fashion, 
back to back. There was room enough on the sj)acious seat 
to lie down and take a nap. When the elephant rises, which 
he does, two legs at a time, deliberately, you must hold on 
to the rail of your seat. Once on his feet, he swings along 
at a slow, wabbling pace. The motion is an easy one, like 
that of a boat in a light sea. In time, if you go long dis- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 593 

tances, it becomes very tiresome. Apparently, you are as 
free as in a carriage or a railway-car. You can sit in any 
position, or creejD about from one side to the other. But 
the motion brings every part of the body into action, bend- 
ing and swinging it, and I could well see how a day's long 
journey would make the body very weary and tired. 

We left the plain, and ascended the hot, dusty hill to 
Amber. As we ascended, the plain opened before us, and 
distance deadening the brown arid spaces only showed us 
the groves and walled gardens, and the greenness of the 
valley came upon us, came with joyousness and welcome, 
as a memory of home, for there is no green in India, and 
you long for a meadow or a rolling field of clover — long 
with the sense of thirst. There was the valley, and be- 
yond the towers of Jeypoor, which seemed to shimmer and 
tremble in the sun. We passed over ruined paths, crumb- 
ling into fragments. We passed small temjiles, some of 
them ruined, some with offerings of grain or flowers or 
fruit, some with priests and people at worship. On the 
walls of some of the temples we saw the marks of the 
human hand as though it had been steeped in blood and 
pressed against the white wall. We were told that it was 
the custom, when seeking from the gods some benison, to 
note the vow by putting the hand into a liquid and j^rint- 
ing it on the wall. • This was to remind the god of the 
vow and the prayer, and if it came in the shape of rain or 
food or health or children, the joyous devotee returned to 
the temple and made other offerings — money and fruits. 
We kept our way, slowly ascending, winding around the 
hill on whose crest was the palace of Amber. Mrs. Grant, 
with her couriers, had gone ahead, and, as our procession 
of elephants turned up the last slope and passed under 
the arch, we saw the lady of our expedition high up at a 
lattice window waving her handkerchief. The court-yard 

. 35 



594 GRANT'S TOUR 

was open and spacious, and entering, our elephants knelt 
and we came down. We reached the palace while wor- 
ship was in progress at the temple. Dr. Hendley told us 
that we were in time to take part in the services and to see 
the priest offer up a kid. Every day in the year in this 
temple a kid is offered up as a propitiation for the sins of 
the Maharajah. The temple was little more than a room 
in the palace — a private chapel. At one end was a plat- 
form raised a few inches from the ground and covered 
over. On this platform were the images of the gods — of 
the special god — I think it is Shiva, whom his Highness 
worships. On this point I will not speak with certainty, 
for in a mythology embracing several hundred millions of 
gods one is apt to become bewildered. Whatever the god, 
the worship was in full progress, and there was the kid 
ready for sacrifice. We entered the inclosure and stood 
with our hats off. There were a half-dozen worshippers 
crouching on the ground. One of the attendants held the 
kid while the priest sat crouching over it, reading from 
the sacred books, and in a half-humming, half-whining 
chant blessing the sacrifice, and as he said each prayer 
putting some grain or spice or oil on its head. The poor 
animal licked the crumbs as they fell about it, quite uncon- 
scious of its holy fate. Another attendant took a sword 
and held it before the priest. He read some prayers over 
the sword and consecrated it. Then the kid was carried 
to the corner, where there was a small heap of sand or 
ashes and a gutter to carry away the blood. The priest 
continued his prayers, the kid's head was suddenly drawn 
down and with one blow severed from the body. The 
virtue of the sacrifice consists in the head falling at the 
first blow ; and so expert do the priests become, that at some 
of the great sacrifices, where buffalo are offered up in ex- 
piation of the princely sins, they will take off the buffalo's 



AROUND THE WORLD. 595 

head witli one stroke of the sword. The kid having per- 
formed the office of expiation becomes useful for the 
priestly dinner. 

Of the Palace of Amber the most one can say is that 
it is curious and interesting as the home of an Indian king 
in the days when India was ruled by her kings and a 
Hastings and a Clive had not come to rend and destroy. 
The Maharajah has not quite abandoned it. He comes 
sometimes to the great feasts of the faith, and a few apart- 
ments are kept for him. His rooms were ornamented with 
looking-glass decorations, with carved marble which the 
artisan had fashioned into tracery so delicate that it looked 
like lace work. What strikes you in this Oriental decora- 
tion is its tendency to light, bright, lacelike gossamer work, 
showing infinite pains and patience in the doing, but with- 
out any special value as a real work of art. The general 
effect of these decorations is agreeable, but all is done for 
effect. There is no such honest, serious work as you see 
in the Gothic cathedrals, or even in the Alhambra. One 
is the expression of a facile, sprightly race, fond of the 
sunshine, delighting to repeat the caprice of nature in the 
curious and quaint ; the other has a deep, earnest j)urpose. 
This is an imagination which sees its gods in every form — 
in stones and trees and beasts and creeping things, in the 
stars above, in the snake wriggling through the hedges — 
the other sees only one God, even the Lord God Jehovah, 
who made the heavens and the earth, and will come to 
judge the world at the last day. As you wander through 
the court-yards and chambers of Amber, the fancy is 
amused by the character of all that surrounds you. There 
is no luxury. All these kings wanted was air and sun- 
shine. They slejDt on the floor. The chambers of their 
wives were little more than cells built in stone. Here are 
the walls that surrounded their section of the palace. 



596 GRANT'S TOUR. 

There are no windows looking into the outer world, only 
a thick stonewall pierced with holes slanting upward, so 
that if a curious spouse looked out she would see nothing 
lower than the stars. Amber is an immense palace, and 
could quite accommodate a rajah with a court of a thousand 
attendants 

There were some beautiful views from the terrace, and 
we sat in the shade between the columns and looked into 
the valley beyond, over which the sun was streaming in 
midday splendor. We should like to have remained, but 
our elephants had been down to the water to lap them- 
selves about, and were now returning, refreshed, to bear 
us back to Jeypoor. We had only given ourselves a day 
for the town, and we had to return the call of the Prince, 
which is a serious task in Eastern etiquette. Mr. Borie 
was quite beaten down and used up by the sun and the 
wabbling, wearisome elephant ride, but we succeeded in 
persuading him to make the descent in a chair as Mrs. 
Grant had done. While Mr. Borie and Mrs. Grant were 
off swinging and lolling down the hill, the rest of us took 
a short cut among the ruins, leaping from stone to stone, 
watching the ground carefully as we went, to see that we 
disturbed no coiled and sleeping cobra, until we came upon 
our huge and tawny brutes, and were wabbled back to our 
carriages and in our carriages to town. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE JUiVGLES OF JEYPOOR THE COLONEL TRIES HIS 

SKILL AT BOAR HUNTING THE VISIT TO BHURTPOOR 

THE RUINS OF FUTTEHPOOR SIKRA ARRIVAL AT 

AGRA THE TAJ THE GENERAL EFFECT OF THE 

MAUSOLEUM INSIDE THE PALACE AN ENTERTAIN- 
MENT AND FAREWELL A HINDOO PUNCH AND JUDY 

SHOW OFF FOR DELHI. 

The jungles of Jeypoor are famous for their abundance 
of wild beasts. Colonel Grant, who had had some expe- 
rience in hunting on our great Western plains, became 
anxious to try his skill here, and it was not long before an 
opportunity ]3resented itself. The hunt and its attendant 
circumstances are thus described : — An officer of the Ma- 
harajah^s household, the principal hunter, and famous 
among the hunters in India, waited upon us at the British 
residency, and said that at six next morning he would be 
ready to accompany any of us to the jungle who cared to 
go, and ^would direct the hunt. The Doctor was disposed 
to volunteer, and if the General himself had not been 
under engagements which he could not put aside, I think 
he would have ventured out, if for no other reason than to 
have a good stiff" ride in the jungle. Mr. Borie preferred 
to remain with the General, and the Colonel alone of the 
party went into the hunt. At six, our party left the resi- 
dency, and drove out in the cool of the morning for six or 
seven miles. When they came to the jungle, horses were 
in readiness, with bullock-carts, and a swarm of attendants. 
The Colonel had had his own share of hunting on the 
frontiers, and as a cavalryman had a good eye and a good 

597 



598 GRANT'S TOUR 

seat. There were fire-arms along, to meet any other animal 
that might venture upon them. Not unfrequently, when 
looking for a pig, you may stumble upon a tiger or a pan- 
ther or a bear, when the conditions of the hunt change. 

Our party were prepared for such an emergency, but 
it did not come. When they came to the ground, they 
mounted. The Colonel rode with the chief sportsmen and 
an interpreter. There were sixteen horsemen, two camels, 
two bullock-carts, and beaters on foot. The chief was a 
fine, comely, lithe young man, who rode a horse like an 
Indian, with a keen, piercing eye, who looked upon the 
jungle as upon home, and knew every feature of it. He 
wore a padded gown or riding-coat, which looks like one 
of our comfortable morning wrappers, made of calico, and 
over this. a flowing silk or brocaded tunic as a mark of his 
rank. When you go on the hunting-ground, the party 
divide, at distances far enough apart to cover a mile of the 
jungle. There are beaters on foot, who go into the grass 
and beat the game towards you, making loud noises. If 
you pass a sow or her young, yOu keep on, allowing them 
to root at peace or scamper away. If a boar is seen, the 
signal is given, either by a whistle or a call, sometimes by 
firing a pistol. Some of the beaters have pistols, so that 
if the boar should make a break and try to escape, they 
can fire a blank shot, and turn him. The boar will turn 
at the noise and the flash ; but if the boar is in distance, 
you gather your reins, brace yourself in your saddle, take 
your spear, and run at full speed. The boar always seeks 
flight. If at all in condition, he will go at a pace which 
no horse can keep. But this does not last long. The first 
burst over, and you gain on him. In time you ride him 
down, and, as you pass, you drive the spear into his flanks, 
or, if you can, into his back, so as to sever his spine. But 
this is not often done. The law of the chase is that the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 601 

first stroke of the spear gives you the right to the trojDhy. 
You wound the boar, severely perhaps. Your spear is 
wrenched from your hand, is broken by the boar, who will 
snap the iron blade as easily as a stalk of cane. Even 
when wounded the boar will keejD his flight. You pursue 
him, and again spear him, sometimes again and again. 
The animal, faint from the running, from the loss of blood 
from the wounds, comes to bay, stops and turns. Then 
comes the real interest of the chase. He turns to bay, and 
makes a rush. Well for the horseman who cannot only 
keep his seat, but so guide his horse that the boar will not 
plunge his tusk into his animal's flanks, and rip him open. 
The Colonel, when he ran down his first boar, drove the 
spear. It was hastily, perhaps awkwardly, done, and the 
boar snapped off the blade.. When the boar turned it 
charged the Colonel's horse. He avoided the charge, the 
boar simply touching the Colonel's foot as he passed. 
Another horseman was not so fortunate, as the animal 
drove his tusk into its flank, and made an ugly gash. 
Another spear was given the Colonel, who again S23eared 
the boar, and this time more effectively, for the animal 
turned over and died. 

One pig is not a bad day's sport, but the morning was 
not far gone, and the Colonel felt that the spearing on his 
part had not been well done. It was his first trial, how- 
ever, and he would have been pardoned if he had come 
home content with his trophy. So the hunt went on. In 
a short time another boar was found, and the Colonel 
charged it. This time the battle was in the Colonel's own 
hands. He had seen how the director of the hunt man- 
aged his business, and the result was a triumph. Hiding 
the boar out of his swift pace he drove the spear. When 
the animal turned he faced and fought. Another horse 
in this charge, ridden by an attendant, was wounded, the 



602 GRANT'S TOUR 

boar taking him in the shoulder, and inflicting an ugly 
wound. Another attendant was thrown and bruised. But 
the end came, and the Colonel drove his spear home, thus 
securing his second pig, and glory enough for the day. It 
was then proposed to shoot antelope. The antelope is no 
less wary in the jungle than in our own prairie. He is 
wary and fleet. It is difficult to stalk him, for going on 
foot through a jungle, where the wildest of wild animals 
may come on you, is not a sensible proceeding. In Jey- 
poor, there are two ways of hunting the antelope. One is 
with the cheetah, an animal of the leopard species, of re- 
markable speed for a short run. The cheetah is taken and 
trained. I do not think he ever becomes thoroughly tamed, 
although I saw some in Jeypoor led around by attendants. 
I did not test their docility, having the emotion of early 
menagerie days, and thinking it odd to see a long, creeping, 
spotted leopard pacing up and down the streets. The Ma- 
harajah has several in his hunting establishment, and, if 
our party had cared, would have given us a cheetah hunt. 
The animal is tamed — at least made tame enough to obey 
his keeper. He is taken in an ox-cart to the jungle, and 
hooded. The ox-cart drives into the jungle, and so ap- 
proaches the antelopes. The ox-cart is so familiar, as the 
common wagon of the farmer, that its passing does not dis- 
turb them. A horseman or a traveller or a hunter, wear- 
ing a different tint of garment from the ordinary peasant, 
would set a whole herd in motion. The ox-cart aj^proaches 
within three or four hundred yards. The cheetah is un- 
hooded, and flies at his game. If successful, he brings it 
down on the first run. Seizing the animal by the throat, 
there is no escaping. If, however, the distance is badly 
considered, and the antelope shows too much speed, or the 
cheetah is bewildered, and does not spring at the moment, 
the antelope gets off", for the speed of the cheetah does not 



AROUND THE WORLD. 603 

last beyond the first few hundred yards. He has no enter- 
prise, no sense, and when his experiment fails, stops, and 
would perhaps go leaping into the jungle, if his keeper did 
not come, and, covering him with a hood, lead him to his 
cart. If he succeeds and brings the antelope down, he is 
allowed to drink his blood as a reward. This reward is 
the condition of tameness. The Colonel and his party had 
the ox-carts at their disposal, and, satisfied with their ex- 
ploits over the boar, went after the antelope. The carts 
drove within good shooting range, when the Colonel brought 
down a fine buck. This closed the day's work, for noon 
Avas coming, and it was thought best not to tempt too 
strongly the heat of the jungle. The Colonel came back 
to Jeypoor with the tusks of the two boars and the horn-s 
of the antelope as his troj)hies. As a young American's 
first day in the jungle, the result was a triumph for our 
exj^edition, and we felt so much interest in the tusks and the 
horns and the narrative of the day's adventures, that we be- 
gan to feel ourselves sharers in the glory, and that we, too, 
had been in the grass, charging the wild boar, and pursuing 
the flying deer. The Colonel thanked the Maharajah for 
having given him so fine a day's S]3ort. 

Leaving Jeypoor, the party set out for Agra. On their 
way they passed through Bhurtpoor. The correspondent 
of the journey thus writes : — All Bhurtpoor was out at the 
station, and the Maharajah at the head. The Prince was 
accompanied by the British officers attached to his court, 
and, advancing, shook hands with the General and wel- 
comed him to his capital. The Maharajah looks older 
than his years, but this is a trait of most Indian j^rinces. 
He wore a blazing uniform, covered with jewels. He has 
a firm, stern face, with strong features and a good frame. 
From the station we drove to the palace, into a town whose 
dismantled walls speak of English valor and English 



604 GRANT'S TOUR 

shame ; past bazaars, where people seemed to sell nothing, 
only to broil in the sunshine, and under a high archway 
into a court-yard and thence to the palace. There was 
nothing special about the palace, except that it was very 
large and very uncomfortable. The decorations were odd. 
There were one or two bits of valuable china, prints of an 
American circus entering London, an oil painting of our 
Saviour, various prints of the French and English royal 
families, taken forty years ago. There were the Queen, 
the Prince Consort, Louis PhilijDpe, Montpensier, and all 
the series of loyal engravings in vogue at the time of the 
Spanish marriages, all young and fresh and smiling faces, 
some of them now worn and gray, some vanished into 
silence. The palace seemed to be a kind of storeroom, in 
which the keepers had stored everything that came along ; 
and as you walked from wall to wall, passing from cheap 
circus showbills to steel engravings of Wellington and oil 
paintings of our Lord, the effect was ludicrous. The Prince 
does not live in this palace, but in one more suited to Ori- 
ental tastes. It was here where he received the Prince of 
"Wales on the occasion of his visit in 1876. There was a 
breakfast prepared, which the Prince left us to enjoy in 
com23any with our English friends. You know in this 
country the hospitality of the highest j^rinces never goes 
so far as to ask you to eat. The rules of caste are so 
marked that the partaking of food with one of another 
caste, and especially of another race, would be defilement. 
Our host, at the close of the breakfast, returned in state, 
and there was the ceremony of altar and pan and cordial 
interchanges of good feeling between the Maharajah and 
the General. 

It was arranged that on our way to Agra we should 
visit the famous ruins of Futtehpoor Sikra. Mr. Law- 
rence, the collector, was there to meet us, and our hotel- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 605 

keeper at Agra had sent all that was necessary. The 
General, Mrs. Grant, and Mr. Borie quartered in the ruin 
known as the Birbul's house. The remainder went with 
Mr. Lawrence to another ruin about a hundred j^aces off, 
which has no name. The Birbul house is supposed to 
have been the home of Akbar's daughter, or, as some 
think, a house enclosed and made sacred for the women 
of his harem. It is a two-storied building, massive and 
large, and finished with a minuteness and delicacy that 
you never see even in patient India. As a house alone — 
the mere piling of blocks of sandstone one ujDon the other 
— the Birbul house would be a curious and meritorious 
work; but when you examine it, you see that there is 
scarcely an inch that has not been carved and traced by 
some master-workmen. It is all stone ; no wood or iron 
or metal of any kind has been used to fashion it. The 
workmen depended upon the stone ; and so sure was their 
trust that, although centuries have passed since it was 
built, and generations have ripened since it was aban- 
doned, the work is as fresh and clean as though the artisan 
had only laid doAvn his tools — so well did men work in 
those days of patience and disci23line, and so gentle is the 
touch of time in Hindostan. 

The General does not regard early rising as a distin- 
guishing trait, and some of the others were under the 
influence of his example ; but Mr. Borie was up and 
cheerful, and rejoicing in a white pony, which some magi- 
cian had brought to his feet, saddled and bridled,, to view 
the ruins. The sun had scarcely risen, and wise travellers, 
like Mr. Borie, always take the cool hours for their sight- 
seeing. But Mr. Borie is a very wise traveller, who allows 
nothing to pass him, and so our party divided. Mr. Law- 
rence said he would wait for the General, and the early 
risers, under the escort of two young ladies Avho had been 



606 



GRANT'S TOUR 



passengers on the Venetia, with Mr. Borie leading the van 
on his white pony, set out to view the ruins. To have seen 
all the ruins of this stupendous j)lace would have included 
a ride around a circumference of seven miles. There were 
some ruins well worth a study. We went first to the quad- 
rangle, a court-yard 433 feet by 366 feet. On one side of 
this is the mosque, which is a noble building, suffering, 
however, from the overshadowing grandeur of the princi- 
pal gateway, the finest, it is said, in India, looming up out 
of the ruins with stately and graceful splendor, but dwarf- 




EUINS OF FUTTEHPOOR SIKRA. 



ing the other monuments and ruins. This was meant as 
an arch of triumph to the glory of the Emperor, " King 
of Kings,"- " Heaven of the Court," and " Shadow of God." 
There are many of these inscriptions in Arabic, a transla- 
tion of which I find in Mr. Keene's hand-book. The most 
suggestive is this : — "Know that the world is a glass where 
the favor has come and gone. Take as thine own nothing 
more than what thou lookest upon." We were shown one 
chamber where the body of a saint reposes, and also a 



AROUND THE WORLD. 607 

tomb with a marble screen work of the most exquisite 
character. The prevailing aspect of the architecture was 
Moslem, with traces of Hindoo taste and decoration. The 
mosque, the tombs, and the gateway are all well preserved. 
At one of the mosques were a number of natives in prayer, 
who interrupted their devotions long enough to show us 
the delicate tracing on the walls and beg a rupee. It was 
mentioned as an inducement to engage one of the guides 
that he had done the same office for the Prince of Wales. 
But one of the pleasures of wandering among these . stu- 
pendous ruins is to wander alone, and take in the full 
meaning of the work and the genius of the men who did 
it. The guides have nothing to tell you. The ruins to 
them are partly dwelling-places, pretexts for begging rupees, 
and the guide who came on our track insisted upon show- 
ing us a well or tank into which men jumped from a wall 
eighty feet high. Mr. Borie's resolution to see everything 
led us to accept the offer. On our way we met the Gen- 
eral, who was also seeing the ruins. It was proj)osed that 
we should all go to the well and see the men jump. But 
we could not tempt the General. He did not want to see 
men jump, finding no pleasure in these dangerous exper- 
iments. As we came to the well, which was a square 
pond, with walls of masonry, the wall above was manned 
with eager natives, screaming and gesticulating. Mr. Borie 
singled out two, who threw off their few garments and 
made the jump. The motion is a peculiar one. Lea23ing 
into the air, they move their legs and arms so as to keep 
their feet down and come into the water feet foremost. 
The leap was certainly a daring one, but it was done safely, 
and the divers came hurrying up the sides of the pond, 
shivering and chattering their teeth, to claim their rupees 
and offer to jump all day for the same compensation. 

Continuing their journey, the travellers proceeded to 



608 GRANT'S TOUR 

Agra, from which point our correspondent writes as fol- 
lows : 

The city itself contains only one monument, the Taj, 
and the remains of a beautiful palace, now used as a fort. 
A description of the palace, to give you any idea of its 
vastness and splendor, would be impossible in the space 
of any publication not devoted to architecture. The palace 
is buih of red sandstone — a stone that seems to have been 
the foundation of all the buildings of the Akbar domina- 
tion. The same stone prevails at Futtehpoor Sikra. But 
all the ornamentation, the chambers, corridors, and pavil- 
ions are of white marble. The influence of a European 
taste is seen in the mosaic, which repeats the Florentine 
school, and is even carried out in the bazaars, where Agra 
mosaic, that looks like a crude imitation of Florence, is a 
specialty. This influence came from European adven- 
turers who found a refuge at the court of the Mogul, 
among them a Frenchman named Augustin de Bordeaux. 
Saracenic art, tinted by the Orientalism of India and con- 
trolled by a taste which had been formed in the schools of 
Europe, makes a peculiar blending. The general effect is 
lost in the crowding together of so many objects of beauty. 
There is no view like those you see in Spain, in the Moor- 
ish monuments of Grenada, Toledo, and Seville. The fort 
is on a plain, and might be a market or a barracks, from 
all you can see on the outside, which is a blank wall ; but 
there are bits throughout the palace which neither time 
nor the influence of nature nor the heel of conquerors has 
destroyed. The Pearl Mosque, as it is called, is very beau- 
tiful. Built on a foundation of the common red sand- 
stone, its domes may be seen in distant views of the fort. 

There is no ornament to detract from the religious sen- 
timent which should pervade a temple. The God you 
worship there is the God of beauty. The bath-room, with 



AROUND THE WORLD. 609 

its decorations of looking-glass, is curious ; but you see 
the same effect in the palace of the Maharajah of Jeypoor. 
The Hall of Audience is a noble room ; but as minor 
things are lost in the greater, so in your remembrances of 
the fort nothing takes the place of the Pearl Mosque. 

But the Taj ! We were to see the most beautiful 
building in the world. Public opinion all through India 
unites in this judgment of the Taj. It was late in the 
afternoon when we went to the Taj. The ride is a short 
one, over a good road, and we had for an escort Judge 
Keene, of Agra, who has made the art, the history, and 
the legends of the Mohammedan domination in India a 
study. It happened to be Sunday, and as we drove along 
the road there seemed to be a Sunday air about the crowds 
that drifted backward and forward from the gardens. On 
our arrival at the gate, the General and j)arty were re- 
ceived by the custodians of the building ; and as we walked 
down the stone steps and under the overarching shade- 
trees, we had grown to be quite a procession. 

The principle which inspires these magnificent and use- 
less tombs is of Tartar origin. The Tartars, we are told, 
built their tombs in such a manner as to " serve for places 
of enjoyment for themselves and their friends during their 
lifetime." While the builder lives he uses the building as 
a house of recreation, receives his friends, gives entertain- 
ments. When he dies he is buried within the walls, and 
from that hour the building is abandoned. It is ever after- 
wards a tomb, given alone to the dead. There is something- 
Egyptian in this idea of a house of feasting becoming a 
tomb ; of a great prince, as he walks amid crowds of re- 
tainers and friends, knowing that the walls that resound 
with laughter will look down on his dust. This will ac- 
count for so many of the stupendous tombs that you find 
in Upper India. Happily, it does not account for the 



610 GRA NT'S TO UR 

Taj. If tlie Taj liad been a Tartar idea — a house of 
merriment to the builder and of sorrow afterward — it 
would have lost something of the poetry which adds to its 
beauty. The Taj is the expression of the grief of the 
Emperor Shah Jehan for his wife, who was known in 
her day as Mumtaz-i-Mabal, or the Exalted One of the 
Palace. She was herself of royal blood, with Persian 
ancestry intermingled. She was married in 1615 to 
Shah Jehan, then heir to the throne, and, having borne 
him seven children, died in 1629 in giving birth to the 
eighth child. Her life, therefore, was in the highest sense 
consecrated; for she gave it up in the fulfilment of a su- 
preme and holy duty, in itself a consecration of woman- 
hood. The husband brought the body of the wife and 
mother to these gardens, and entombed it until the monu- 
ment of his grief should be done. It was seventeen years 
before the work was finished. The cost is unknown, the 
best authorities rating it at more than two millions of dol- 
lars. Two millions of dollars in the time of Shah Jehan, 
with labor for the asking, would be worth as much as 
twenty millions in our day. For seventeen years 20,000 
men worked on the Taj, and their wages was a daily por- 
tion of corn. 

The effect of the Taj as seen from the gate, looking 
down the avenue of trees, is grand. The dome and towers 
seem to rest in the air, and it would not surprise you if they 
became clouds and vanished into rain. The gardens are 
the perfection of horticulture, and you see here, as in no 
part of India that I have visited, the wealth and beauty of 
nature in Hindostan. The landscape seems to be flushed 
with roses, with all varieties of the rose, and that most sunny 
and queenly of flowers seems to strew your path, and bid 
you welcome, as you saunter down the avenues and up the 
ascending slope that leads to the shrine of a husband's love 



i 



AROUND THE WORLD. 613 

and a motiier's consecration. There is a row of fountains 
which throw out a spray and cool the air, and when you 
pass the trees and come to the door of the building, its great- 
ness comes upon you — its greatness and its beauty. Mr. 
Keene took us to various parts of the garden, that we might 
see it from different points of view. I could see no value 
in one view beyond the other. And when our friend, in 
the spirit of courteous kindness, pointed out the defects of 
the building — that it was too much this, or too much that, 
or would have been perfect if it had been a little less of 
something else — there was just the least disposition to re- 
sent criticism, and to echo the opinion of Mr. Borie, who, 
as he stood looking at the exquisite towers and solemn 
marble walls, said, " It was worth coming to India to see 
the Taj." I value that criticism, because it is that of a 
practical business man, concerned with affairs, and not dis- 
posed to see a poetic side to any subject. What he saw in 
the Taj was the idea that its founder meant to convey — the 
idea of solemn, overpowering, and unapproachable beauty. 
As you enter, you see a vast dome, every inch of which 
is enriched with inscriptions in Arabic, verses from the 
Koran, engraved marble, mosaics, decorations in agate and 
jasper. In the centre are two small tombs of white marble, 
modestly carved. These cover the resting-place of the 
Emperor and his wife, whose bodies are in the vault under- 
neath. In other days the Turkish priests read the Koran 
from the gallery, and you can imagine how solemn must 
have been the effect of the words chanted in a priestly 
cadence by the echo that answers and again answers the 
chanting of some tune by one of the party. The more 
closely you examine the Taj, the more you are perplexed 
to decide whether its beauty is to be found in the general 
effect of the design as seen from afar, or the minute and 
finished decorations which cover every wall. The general 

36 



614 GRANT'S TOUR 

idea of the building is never lost. There is nothing trivial 
about the Taj, no grotesque Gothic moulding or flowering 
Corinthian columns — all is cold and white and chaste and 
pure. You may form an idea of the size of the Taj from 
the figures of the measurement of the royal engineers. 
From the base to the top of the centre dome is 139i feet; 
to the summit of the pinnacle, 243 J feet. It stands on the 
banks of the River Jumna, and it is said that Shah Jehan 
intended to build a counterpart in black marble, in which 
his own ashes should rest. But misfortunes came to Shah 
Jehan — ungrateful children, strife, deposition — and when 
he died, his son felt that the Taj was large enough for both 
father and mother. One is almost glad that the black 
marble idea never germinated. The Taj, by itself alone, 
is unapproachable. A duplicate would have detracted from 
its peerless beauty. 

We remained in the gardens until the sun went down, 
and we had to hurry to our carriages not to be caught in 
the swiftly descending night. The gardener came to Mrs. 
Grant with an offering of roses. Some of us, on our return 
from JeyjDOor, took advantage of the new moon to make 
another visit. We had been told that the moonlight gave 
a new glory even to the Taj. It was the night before we 
left Agra, and we coujd not resist the temptation, even at 
the risk of kee|)ing some friends waiting who had asked us 
to dinner, of a moonlight view. It was a new moon, which 
made our view imperfect. But such a view as was given 
added to the beauty of the Taj. The cold lines of the 
marble were softened by the shimmering silver light. The 
minarets seemed to have a new height, and the dome had a 
solemnity as became the canopy of the mother and queen. 
We strolled back, now and then turning for another last 
view of the wonderful tomb. The birds were singing, the 
air was heavy with the odors of the rose-garden, and the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 615 

stillness, the twilight stillness, all added to the beauty of 
the mausoleum, and combined to make the memory of our 
visit the most striking among the many wondrous things 
we have seen in Hindostan. 

Our further stay in Agra was made pleasant by a 
dinner at the Agra Club, a roomy building in an enclosure 
of trees and grass. This dinner was complimentary to 
Grant in the presence of Kana Nehal Singh, the Maha- 
rajah of Dholpur, who presided. This young prince is in 
the sixteenth year of his age. He is a Jat by descent; the 
Jats are supposed to be a tribe of Scythians driven through 
China and over the mountains to find a home in Rajputana. 
The Maharajah governs a small province 1,600 square miles 
in extent, with a population of 500,000 and a revenue 
from the province of $4,500,000 annually. The Maha- 
rajah has been under the tutelage of the British Govern- 
ment, his guardian being Lieutenant-Colonel Denneby. 
The Maharajah wore a picturesque Hindoo costume and 
jewels of immense value. He sat next to Mrs. Grant, 
with whom he had a long conversation. The Prince 
speaks English fluently, and, having been under English 
influence from his infancy, it is believed will be a loyal 
prince. The experience of the English in the education 
of princes and Indians of high caste has not always been 
satisfactory. After they marry and pass out of the control 
of their guardians, they remember much of their English 
education that might as well be forgotten, and forget much 
that might be remembered. The Maharajah is a young 
man, with a pleasing countenance and manly, frank man- 
ners, and seemed to be fond of the old Colonel who w^as in 
charge of him. At the close of the dinner, the Prince 
arose, and the health of the Queen was proposed. Then 
came a toast to General Grant, proposed by Judge Keene, 
and a response from the General. At the close of the 



616 GRANT'S TOUR. 

dinner, a company of native players gathered on tlie 
veranda and told stories in the Indian dialect, and gave 
little mimic charades or comedies, the actors being puppets, 
a kind of Hindoo Punch and Judy show. The subjects 
illustrated were incidents of the mutiny and scenes in the 
life of a tax-gatherer. There was a good deal of skill and 
some humor shown in the management of the puppets, and 
altogether it was an odd experience. The dinner over, we 
took our leave of our friends, whose kindness had been un- 
bounded, and next morning j)roceeded to the north, to 
Delhi, the city of the Mogul kings, and Lucknow, the city 
of the rulers of Oude — cities famous in the ancient history 
of India for their wealth and s^^lendor, and even more 
famous now with a dreary and tragic renown as the centres 
of the mutiny of 1857. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DELHI FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY THE PALACE OF 

THE GRAND MOGUL THE THRONE OF AURUNGZEBE 

THE PEACOCK THRONE MOSLEM VANDALISM THE 

KUTAB THE VISIT TO LUCKNOW THE SCENE OF THE 

SEPOY REBELLION MISSIONARY EFFORTS BENARES, 

THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS MACAULAY's DE- 
SCRIPTION OF IT A CITY OF PRIESTS ITS TEMPLES 

THE SACRED RIVER. 

The visit to Dellii is described in the following lan- 
guage : — We came into Delhi early in the afternoon in a 
worn-out, fagged condition. There was a reception by the 
troops, and the General with Mrs. Grant drove to Ludlow 
Castle, the home of Gordon Young, the chief officer. 
The others found quarters in a comfortable hotel — com- 
fortable for India — near the railway-station. 

The first impression Delhi makes upon you is that it is 
a beautiful town. But I am afraid that the word town, as 
we understand it at home, will give you no idea of a town 
in India. We think of houses built closely together, of 
avenues and streets, and people living as neighbors and 
friends. In India, a town is built for the air. The natives 
in some of the native sections, in the bazaars, live closely 
together, huddle into small cubby-holes of houses or rude 
caves, in huts of mud and straw, but natives of wealth 
and Englishmen build their houses where they may have 
space. A drive through Delhi is like a drive through the 
lower part of Westchester county or any of our country 
suburbs. The officials have their bungalows in the finest 
localities, near wood and water when possible, surrounded 

617 



618 GRANT'S TOUR 

by gardens. What strikes you in India is the excellence 
of the roads and the beauty of the gardens. This was 
especially true of Delhi. As you drove from the dusty 
station, with the strains of welcoming music and the clang 
of presenting arms in your ears, you passed through a 
section that might have been an English country town 
with gentlemen's seats all around. 

There are few cities in the world which have had a 
more varied and more splendid career than Delhi. It is 
the Home of India, and the history of India centres 
around Delhi. It has no such place as Benares in the re- 
ligion of the people, but to the Indians it is what Eome in 
the ancient days was to the Koman Empire. One of its 
authentic monuments goes back to the fourth century 
before Christ. Its splendor began with the rise of the 
Mogul empire, and as you ride around the suburbs you 
see the splendor of the Moguls in what they built and the 
severity of their creed in what they destroyed. After you 
pass from the English section, a ride through Delhi is sad. 
You go through miles of ruins — the ruins of many wars 
and dynasties, from what was destroyed by the Turk in 
the twelfth century to what was destroyed by the English- 
man in the nineteenth. The suburbs of Jerusalem are 
sad enough, but there you have only the memories, the 
words of prophecy, and the history of destruction. Time 
has covered or dispersed the ruins. But time has not 
been able to do so with the ruins of Delhi. From the 
Cashmere gate to the Kutab, a ride of eleven miles, your 
road is through monumental ruins. Tombs, temples, mau- 
soleums, mosques, in all directions. The horizon is studded 
with minarets and domes, all abandoned and many in 
ruins. In some of them Hindoo or Moslem families live, 
or, I may say, burrow. Over others the Government keeps 
a kind of supervision ; but to supervise or protect all would 



AROUND THE WORLD. 619 

be beyond the revenues of any government. I was shown 
one ruin — an arched way, beautiful in design and of archi- 
tectural value — which it was proposed to restore ; but the 
cost was beyond the resources of the Delhi treasury. I 
have no doubt of the best disposition of the rulers of 
India towards the monuments and all that reminds the 
Hindoo of his earlier history. But these monuments were 
built when labor was cheap, when workmen were com- 
pelled to be content with a handful of corn, and when the 
will of the ruler was a warrant for anything that pleased 
him. So that even to a rich and generous government, 
conducted on English principles, the restoration of the 
monuments would be an enormous tax. The English, 
however, are not apt to waste much money on sentiment. 
They did not come to India to leave money behind, but to 
take it away, and all the money spent here is first to secure 
the government of the country, and next to ameliorate the 
condition of the people and prevent famines. The money 
which England takes out of India every year is a serious 
drain upon the country, and is among the causes of its 
poverty. But if money is to be spent, it is better to do so 
upon works of irrigation, that will prevent famines, than 
upon monuments, which m^an nothing to this generation, 
and which might all be destroyed, with a few exceptions, 
without any loss to history or art. 

Among the sights to be beheld in Delhi is the palace of 
the Grand Mogul, concerning which our correspondent 
says : — In wandering about Delhi your mind is attracted 
to these sad scenes. What it must have been when the 
Moguls reigned you may see in the old palace, the great 
mosque of Shah Ishan, and the Kutab. On the afternoon 
of our arrival we were taken to the palace, which is now 
used as a fort for the defence of the city. We have an 
idea of what the palace must have been in the days of 



620 GRANT'S TOUR 

Aurungzebe. " Over against the great gate of the court," 
says a French writer who visited India in the seventeenth 
century, " there is a great and stately hall, with many 
ranks of pillars high raised, very airy, open on three sides 
looking to the court, and having its pillars ground and 
gilded. In the midst of the wall, which separateth this 
hall from the seraglio, there is an opening or a kind of 
great window high and large, and so high that a man can- 
not reach to it from below with his hand. There it is 
where the King appears, seated upon his throne, having 
his sons on his side, and some eunuchs standing, some of 
which drive away the flies with peacocks' tails, others fan 
him with great fans, others stand there ready with great 
respect and humility for several services. Thence he 
seeth beneath him all the umrahs, rajahs, and ambassadors, 
who are also all of them standing upon a raised ground 
encompassed with silver rails, with their eyes downward 
and their hands crossing their stomachs." " In the court 
he seeth a great crowd of all sorts of people." Sometimes 
his Majesty would be entertained by elephants and fight- 
ing animals and reviews of cavalry. There were feats of 
arms of the young nobles of the court ; but more especially 
was this seat a seat of justice, for if any one in the crowd 
had a petition he was ordered to approach, and very often 
justice was done then and there, for " those kings," says a 
French authority, " how barbarous soever esteemed by us, 
do yet constantly remember that they owe justice to their 
subjects." 

We were shown this hall, and by the aid of a sergeant, 
who walked ahead and warned us against stumbling, 
climbed up a narrow stair, and came out on the throne. 
All the decorations have vanished, and it is simply a mar- 
ble platform, " so high that a man cannot reach to it from 
below with his hands." The view from the throne em- 



vm 




AROUND THE WORLD. 623 

braced a wide, open plain, which could easily accommodate 
a large crowd, as well as give space for manoeuvres, reviews, 
and fighting elephants. The hall even now is beautiful 
and stately, although it has been given over to soldiers, 
and the only audience that saluted General Grant during 
his brief tenure of the throne of Aurungzebe, were groups 
of English privates, who lounged about taking their ease, 
making ready for dinner, and staring at the General and 
the groups of officers who accompanied him. The last of 
the Moguls who occupied this throne, was the foolish old 
dotard whom the Sepoys made Emperor in 1857, and who 
used to sit and tear his hair and dash his turban on the 
ground, and call down the curses of God upon his soldiers 
for having dragged him to the throne. All that has long 
since passed away. The Emperor lies in Burmah in an 
unknown grave, the site carefully concealed from all 
knowledge, lest some Moslem retainer should build a shrine 
to his memory. His son is a pensioner and prisoner at 
$3,000 a year. The rest of his family were slain, and the 
present house of the Mohammedan conquerors has sunk 
too low even for compassion. 

Notwithstanding the havoc of armies and the wear and 
tear of barrack life, there are many noble buildings in the 
palace. This hall of audience, before the mutiny, was deco- 
rated with mosaic ; but an officer of the British army cap- 
tured the mosaic, had it made up into various articles, and 
sold them for $2,500. From here we went to the hall of 
special audience, where the Emperor saw his princes and 
noblemen, and which is known as the hall of the peacock 
throne. The site of this famous throne was pointed out 
to us, but there is no trace of it. Around the white mar- 
ble j)latform on which the throne rested are the following 
words in gilt Persian characters : — "If there be an Ely- 
sium on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." The peacock 



624 GRANT'S TOUR 

throne was simply a mass of jewels and gold, valued at 
about $30,000,000. Mr. Beresford, in his book on Delhi, 
says it was called the peacock throne " from its having the 
figures of two peacocks standing behind it, their tails ex- 
panded, and the whole so inlaid with sapphires, rubies, emer- 
alds, pearls, and other precious stones of appropriate colors, 
as to represent life. The throne itself was six feet long by 
four feet broad. It stood on six massive feet, which, with 
the body, were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, 
and diamonds. It was supported by a canopy of gold, up- 
held by twelve pillars, all richly emblazoned with costly 
gems, and a fringe of pearls ornamented the borders of the 
canopy." "On the other side of the throne stood um- 
brellas, one of the Oriental emblems of royalty. They 
were formed of crimson velvet, richly embroidered and 
fringed with pearls. The handles were eight feet high, 
of solid gold, and studded with diamonds." The ceiling 
of this hall was of solid silver. In 1739, when Nadir 
Shah, the Persian, took Delhi, he broke up the peacock 
throne, and carried away the jewels ; the Mahrattas came 
in 1760 and took the silver, the English the mosaics, the 
bath-tubs of marble, and articles of lesser value, so that the 
room of the peacock throne is now a stripped and shabby 
room, with no shadow of its former splendor. 

We went into the bath-rooms of the kings and the 
more private apartments. Some of those rooms had been 
ingeniously decorated in frescoes, but when the Prince of 
Wales came to Delhi, a ball was given him in the palace, 
and three frescoes were covered with w^hitewash. No 
reason was given for this wantonness but that it was 
thought white would light up better under the ball-room 
lamps. I asked one of the officers who accompanied us, 
and who told us the story with indignation, whether the 
decorations could not be restored like the restorations in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 625 

the mosque of Cordova. But there is no such hojie. One 
of the most interesting features in a palace which has been 
already too much stripped vanishes before the whitewash- 
brush of a subaltern. The same spirit was shown in the 
stripping of the great mosque called the Jam-Mussid, 
After the capture of Delhi, in 1857, the troops plundered 
it, going so far as to strip the gilding from the minarets. 
This mosque, even now, is one of the noblest buildings in 
India. It stands in the centre of the city, built upon a 
rock. In the ancient time there were four streets that con.- 
verged upon the mosque, leading into various parts of the 
town. But as the mosque was used during the mutiny as 
a fort, all the space in front of it has been cleared for mil- 
itary purposes, and the space between the mosque and the 
palace, that was forjnerly densely peoj)led, is now an oj)en 
plain, where troops may manoeuvre and cannon may fire. 
Nothing is more important, in the civilization of India by 
the English, than that the cannon should have range. In 
the days of the Moguls the emperors came to the mosque 
to pray. It is now a religious edifice, having been restored 
to the Moslems recently, after twenty years' retention by 
the British, a sort of punishment to the Moslems for their 
course during the mutiny. The ascent is up a noble sweep- 
ing range of steps. These steps were crowded with people, 
who came out in the afternoon to enjoy the air, chatter, 
buy and sell, and fight chickens. On Friday afternoon, 
when there is service, and on fete days, the steps become 
quite a fair. As the General and party walked along, 
beggars and dealers in chickens and falcons swarmed 
around them, anxious for alms or to trade. One of the 
treasures in the mosque was a hair of Mohammed's beard. 
This holiest of Moslem relics is under a keeper, who has a 
pension for the service. He was a quiet, venerable soul, 
who brought us the relic in a glass case. The hair was 

37 



626 GRANT'S TOUR 

long, and had a reddish auburn tinge which time has not 
touched. Another relic was a print of Mohammed's foot 
in marble. The footprint was deep and clear, and shows 
that when the Prophet put his foot down it was with a force 
which even the rocks could not resist. We strolled about 
the mosque, which is large and capacious, as should become 
the temple of an emperor. A few devout souls were at 
prayer, but somehow the building had a neglected look. 
The mosque itself is 201 feet long and 120 feet broad, 
and the minarets 130 feet high. It was here that the 
Mogul emperors worshipped, and here was read the litany 
of the house of Timur. The last of these performances 
was during the mutiny in 1857, when the old King came 
in state, as his ancestors did, and reproduced the sacred 
story of the sacrifice of Abraham in the sacrifice of a camel 
by his own royal hands. 

An interesting visit, worthy of remembrance, was our 
drive to the Kutab. We drove out in the early morning, 
and our course was for eleven miles through the ruins of 
the ancient city. 

The Kutab, or tower, was for a long time looming over 
the horizon before we came to its base. This tower ranks 
among the wonders of India. It is 238 feet high, sloping 
from the base, which is forty-seven feet in diameter, to the 
summit, which is nine feet. It is composed of five sections 
or stories, and with each story there is a change in the design. 
The lower section has twenty-four sides, in the form of 
convex flutings, alternately semicircular and rectangular. 
In the second section they are circular, the third angular, 
the fourth a plain cylinder, the fifth partly fluted and 
partly plain. At each basement is a balcony. On the 
lo^er sections are inscrijotions in scroll work, reciting in 
Arabic characters the glory of God, verses from the Koran, 
and the name and achievements of the conqueror who built 



AROUND THE WORLD. 627 

the tower. It is believed that when really complete, with 
the cupola, it must have been twenty feet higher. The 
work goes back to the fourteenth century, and with the 
exception of the cupola, which, we think, some British 
government might restore, it is in a good state of preser- 
vation. Everything in the neighborhood is a ruin. But 
the town itself seems so well built as to defy time. An- 
other interest which attaches to the Kutab is that it is the 
site of one of the most ancient periods in the history of 
India. It is believed that there was a city here at the be- 
ginning of the Christian era, and one of the monuments is 
the iron pillar which was set uj) 1500 years ago. The 
pillar is a round, iron column, twenty-two feet high, with 
some inscription in Sanscrit character. There are several 
legends associated with the column which have grown into 
the literature and religion of the Hindoo race. The con- 
trast between the modest, simple iron pillar and the stu- 
pendous, overshadowing mass of stone at its side might be 
said to tyjDify the two races which once fought here for the 
Empire of Hindostan — the fragile Hindoo and the stal- 
wart Mussulman. The power of both have given way to 
the men of the North. We climbed the Kutab to the first 
veranda, and had a good view of the country, which was 
desolation, and, having wandered about the ruins, and 
looked at the old inscriptions, and admired many fine bits 
of the ancient splendor which have survived time and war, 
we drove back to the city. 

From Delhi the party jDroceeded to Lucknow, where, 
during the famous Sepoy rebellion, a handful of English 
residents defended themselves against overwhelming forces 
of the rebels, until relieved by Havelock and Sir Colin 
Campbell. One of the j^arty writes : — The main palace 
is called the Kaiser Bagh — a great square of buildings 
surrounding an immense court-yard. These buildings are 



628 GRANT'S TOUR 

pleasant, with a blending of Italian and Saracenic schools, 
giving them an effeminate appearance, glaring with yellow 
paint. This palace cost, at Indian prices of labor, $4,000,000. 
A monument shows you where the British captives were 
butchered in 1857, for which deed Sir Colin Campbell took 
so terrible a revenge. We visited the Secunder Bagh, a 
palace built by the last King, and given to one of his wives, 
Secunder, whence it derives its name. This was carried by 
the British, who killed the two thousand Sepoys defending 
it. We visited other public buildings, all going back to 
the Oude dynasty, showing that the kings did not hesitate 
to beautify their capital. We saw the curious building 
called the Martiniere, a most fantastic contrivance, built by 
a French adventurer who lived at the court of the Oude 
kings, and built this as a tomb for himself, and as a college. 
We also visited the great Imambara, or Home of the 
Prophets, which, in its time, was the most noted building 
in Lucknow, and even now surprises you with the simplicity 
and grandeur of its style. It was used as a mausoleum for 
one of the nobles of Oude, and in other days the tomb was 
strewed with flowers, " and covered with rich barley-bread 
from Mecca, officiating priests being in attendance day and 
night, chanting verses from the Koran." It is now an 
ordnance depot, and when General Grant visited it he was 
shown the guns and cannon-balls by a sergeant of the 
army. 

We drove through the old town, the streets narrow and 
dirty, and as we passed we noted that the people were of a 
different temper from those we had seen in other parts of 
India. Generally speaking, a ride through a native town 
means a constant returning of salutes, natives leaving their 
work to come and stare and make you the Eastern salaam ; 
constant evidences of courtesy and welcome — of respect 
at least for the livery of your coachmen, which is the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 629 

livery of the supreme authority, and signifies to the native 
mind that there is one whom the authority of England 
delights to honor. There was nothing of this in Lucknow. 
The people are Mussulmans, of the fierce, conquering race, 
on whom the yoke of England does not rest lightly, who 
simply scowled and stared, but gave no welcome. Pleasant 
it was to visit a mission -school, under the charge of Amer- 
ican ministers. The clergymen directing the mission re- 
ceived the General and his party at the mission, a spacious 
old house in the suburbs. The scholars — all females — 
were seated under a tree, and as the General came to the 
gate they welcomed him by singing " John Brown." The 
pupils were bright, intelligent children, some of them 
young ladies. There were English, natives and children 
of English and native parents. The missionaries spoke 
of their work hopefully, and seemed enthusiastic over what 
would seem to be the most difficult of tasks — the education 
of women in India. Woman has so strange a position in 
India that if she becomes a Christian her fate is a hard 
one. The Hindoo gives woman no career beyond the 
harem, and in the harem, it seems, that nothing would be 
so much a disadvantage as education. Caste comes in as 
an insurmountable obstacle. 

Benares, the sacred city of the Hindoos, was the next 
point visited. Says our correspondent : — We were all tired 
and frowsy and not wide awake when the train shot into 
Benares station. The English representative of the Vice- 
roy, Mr. Daniells, came on the train and welcomed the 
General to Benares. Then we descended, and the blare 
of trumpets, the word of command, with which we have 
become so familiar, told of the guard of honor. The 
General and Mrs. Grant, accompanied by the leading mil- 
itary and civic English representatives and native rajahs, 
walked down the line with uncovered heads. In honor of 



630 GRANT'S TOUR 

the General's coming, the road from the station to the Gov- 
ernment House had been illuminated. Poles had been 
stuck in the ground on either side of the road, and from 
these poles lanterns and small glass vessels filled with oil 
were swinging. It was a long drive to the house of the 
Commissioner, but even this, and the fatigue of one of the 
severest days we had known in our experience of Indian 
travel, were recompensed by the grace of our welcome. A 
part of his house Mr. Daniells gave to General and Mrs. 
Grant and Mr. Borie. For the others there were tents in the 
garden. Although it was late, after supper we sat on the 
veranda for a long time, talking about India, England, 
and home, fascinated by the marvellous beauty of the 
night — a beauty that affected you like music. 

Benares, the sacred city of the Hindoos, sacred also 
to the Buddhists, is one of the oldest in the world. Macau- 
lay's description, so familiar to all, is worth reprinting, 
from the vividness with which it represents it, as we saw 
it to-day. " Benares," says Macaulay, in his essay on 
Warren "Hastings, " was a city which, in wealth, popula- 
tion, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost in 
Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million 
human beings were crowded into that labyrinth of lofty 
alleys, rich with shrines and minarets, and balconies and 
carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hun- 
dreds. The traveller could scarcely make his way through 
the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The 
broad and stately flights of steps which descended from 
these swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the 
Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an in- 
numerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and 
temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every prov- 
ince where the Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds 
of devotees came thither every month to die, for it was be- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 631 

lieved tliat a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who 
should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor 
was superstition the only motive which allured strangers to 
that great metropolis. Commerce had as many pilgrims 
as religion. All along the shores of the venerable stream 
lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. 
From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate 
silks that adorned the halls of St. James and Versailles ; 
and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and the sabres 
of Oiide were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and the 
shawls of Cashmere." 

Benares is the city of priests. Its population, notwith- 
standing Macaulay's estimate, is less than two hundred 
thousand. Of this number, from twenty to twenty-five 
thousand are Brahmins. They govern the city and hold 
its temples, wells, shrines, and streams. Pilgrims are al- 
ways arriving and going, and as the day of General Grant's 
visit fell upon one of the holiest of Indian festivals, we 
found it crowded with pilgrims. Sometimes as many as 
two hundred thousand come in the course of a year. They 
come to die, to find absolution by bathing in the sacred 
waters of the Ganges. The name comes from- a prince 
named Banar, who once ruled here. The Hindoo name, 
Kasi, means " splendid." There is no record of the num- 
ber of temples. Not long since, one authority counted 
1,454 Hindoo temples and 272 Mohammedan mosques. 
In addition to the temples there are shrines, cavities built 
in walls containing the image of some god, as sacred as 
temples. Pious rajahs are always adding to the temples 
and shrines. It is believed that there are a half million 
of idols in the city. The effect of the British rule has 
been to increase the idols and temples, for the law of the 
British gives protection to all religions, and under this the 
Hindoo has been able to rebuild the monuments which the 

37 



632 GRANT'S TOUR 

Mohammedan invaders pulled down. Aurungzebe, who 
flourished at the close of the seventeenth century, and to 
whom Benares owes a prominent and picturesque mosque, 
was the chief among the destroyers of images. To Aurung- 
zebe the Hindoos attribute the overthrow of most of the 
shrines which made Benares famous in other days. Since 
the Hindoos have been guaranteed the possession of their 
temples, the work of rebuilding has gone on with increas- 
ing zeal. It is noted, however, — perhaps as an effect of 
what Islam did in its days of emjDire, — that the monu- 
ments of the later Hindoo period are small and obscure 
when compared with what we see in Southern India, where 
the power of the idol breakers never was supreme. The 
temples are small. The Hindoo, perhaps, has not such a 
confidence in the perpetuity of British rule as to justify 
his expressing it in stone. It is not in the nature of the 
Hindoo to find an expression for his religion in stone. All 
nature, the seas, the streams, the hills, the trees, the stars, 
and even the rocks, are only so many forms of the Supreme 
existence. Why then attempt to express it in stone ? 

I am afraid Benares is not a savory city. The odors 
that come from the various temples and court-yards, where 
curs, priests, beggars, fakirs, calves, monkeys, were all 
crammed, might have been odors of sanctity to the be- 
lievers in Vishnu, but to us they were ojopressive, and pre- 
vented as intelligent and close a study of the religion as 
some of us might have bestowed. Yet our procession was 
Oriental. The Commissioner, Mr. Daniells, had provided 
sedan-chairs for the party. These chairs were heavy, or- 
namented with gold and brass, mounted on poles, and car- 
ried on the shoulders of four bearers. They are used by 
j^ersons of rank, and the rank is also expressed by carry- 
ing over the head an embroidered silk umbrella in gaudy 
colors. When we came to the outskirts of the town our 



AROUND THE WORLD. 635 

chair-bearers were waiting for us, and the General was told 
that he might take his place. But the idea of swinging in 
a gaudy chair from a pole, with attendants before and be- 
hind calling upon the people to make way, and a dazzling 
umbrella over his head decorated with all the colors of the 
rainbow, was too much for the General. He preferred to 
walk. Mrs. Grant was put in one chair, and Mr. Borie, 
whose health is such as to make every little aid in the way 
of movement welcome, was in another. The General and 
the rest of the party made their way on foot. We were 
accompanied by several officers of the British residency, 
and, as we wound along the alleys from temple to temple, 
were quite a j^rocession. In the eyes of the population it 
was a distinguished procession, for the uj^lifted chairs, 
richly decorated, the swaying of umbrellas covered with 
silver and gold, the attendants in the British Government 
livery — all told that there was among us one whom even 
the Englishman delighted to honor. Some of these tem- 
ples were so narrow that even the chair-bearers could not 
enter, and we made our pilgrimage on foot. You enter a 
small archway, and come into a court-yard. I should say 
the court-yard was a hundred feet square. In the centre is 
a shrine — a canopied shrine. Under this is a god, which- 
ever god hapjDens to be worshipped. It is generally a hide- 
ous stone, without grace or expression. Pilgrims are around 
it, in supplication, and as they pray they put offerings on 
the altar before the idol. These offerings are according to 
the means of the devotee, but most of those I saw' were 
flowers. Hindoo urchins come up to you and put garlands 
of flowers about your neck. This is an act of grace and 
welcome, but you are expected to give money. In front 
of the idol, sitting on his feet, is the Bralimin reading the 
Vedas. You know the Brahmin by the sacred thread 
which he wears on his shoulder, and by the marks of his 



636 GRANT'S TOUR 

caste on his forehead. These marks are painted every 
morning after the bath. But even without the painted 
brow and the drooping loop of thread, you can come to 
know the Brahmin from his bearing, his clean-cut, intel- 
lectual face, his mien of conscious intellect and superiority. 
Pilgrims pray and chant. On the walls — for our temple 
is open — monkeys are perching, chattering, and skipping. 
Around the walls of the enclosure are stalls, with cows and 
calves. These are sacred — held in reverence by the pil- 
grims, who feed and caress and adore them. One or two 
are monstrous births, and they are specially adored. The 
animals move about among the worshippers, quite tame, 
somewhat arrogant. Mrs. Grant was wearing a garland of 
flowers, which a child, who sujDplied flowers to the worship- 
pers, had thrown over her neck. One of the animals see- 
ing the flowers, and knowing them to be savory, made a 
rush for the garland, and before any one could interfere 
Avas munching and tearing it in a deliberate manner. Evi- 
dently that cow had had her own way in her relations with 
the human race, and if she chose to make as much of a 
meal as possible out of the decorations and possessions of 
Mrs. Grant, it was only the force of education. One of 
the police came to the rescue of our lady, but it was only 
after a struggle that the cow could be persuaded to abandon 
her meal. I have no doubt many holy Brahmins were 
grieved to see the authority of England, in the shape of a 
policeman, cudgel a sacred animal into its stall. 

If I were to tell you of all the wells and temples in 
Benares, the holy places and the legends which make 
them sacred, it would carry me beyond bounds. After we 
had visited several of the temples we went to the observa- 
tory of Baja Jai Singh, built at the close of the seven- 
teenth century, and looking down from its battlements we 
see the sacred river shining in the morning sun, the teem- 
ing, busy hive of temples and shrines, from which the hum 



AROUND THE WORLD. 637 

of worship seems to arise ; masses of pilgrims sluggishly 
moving towards the river to plunge into its holy waters and 
be cleansed of sin. We are pointed out the site of the 
holy well of Manikarnaki, dug by the god Vishnu, con- 
secrated by the god Mahadeva, whose waters will wash 
away any sin and make the body pure. From here wo 
went down to the water and, on board of a steam-launch, 
slowly steamed under the banks, and the view of the city 
as seen from our boat was one of the most striking the 
world can afford. Here was the burning Ghat, the spot 
where the bodies of the Hindoos are burned. As we slowly 
steamed along, a funeral procession was seen bearing a body 
to the funeral pyre. We observed several slabs set around 
the burning Ghat. These were in memory of widows who 
had burned themselves on that spot in honor of their hus- 
bands, according to the old rite of suttee. We pass shrines 
and temples without number, the mere recital of whose 
names and attributes would fill several pages. All this 
is lost in the general effect of the city as seen from the 
river. Benares sits on the sacred river, an emblem of the 
strange religion which has made it a holy city, and there is 
solemnity in the thought that for ages she has kept her 
place on the Ganges, that for ages her shrines have been 
holy to millions of men, that for ages the wisest and jDurest 
and best of the Indian race have wandered as pilgrims 
through her narrow streets and plunged themselves as pen- 
itents into the waters to wash away their sins. It is all a 
dark superstition, but let us honor Benares for the comfort 
she has given to so many millions of sinful, sorrowing 
souls. And as we pass along the river towards our house, 
and leave the white towers and steps of Benares glistening 
in the sunshine, we look back ujoon it with something of 
the respect and affection that belong to antiquity, and 
which are certainly not unworthily bestowed upon so re- 
nowned, so sacred, and so venerable a city. 



1 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ARRIVAL AT CALCUTTA RECEPTION BY THE CONSUL-GEN- 
ERAL THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE THE CITY RELIG- 
IOUS PROGRESS GENERAL GRANT AT THE UNIVERSITY 

THE MONEY-CHANGERS OF INDIA THE RECEPTION 

BY THE VICEROY A PICNIC AT BARRACKPORE REM- 
NANTS OF INDIAN SPLENDOR REFUGEES FROM BURMAH 

FAREWELL TO CALCUTTA RECEPTION OF GENERAL 

GRANT AT BURMAH RANGOON THE HINDOO FAITH 

THE GOLDEN PAGODA. 

General Grant and his party next proceeded to Cal- 
cutta, where they arrived early on the morning of March 
10th. Their arrival is thus detailed : — The American 
Consul-General, General Litchfield, was present at the 
station, with a guard of honor from the Viceroy and an 
aid. The General drove off in the state carriages, with a 
small escort of cavalry, to the Government House, where 
preparations had been made by Lord Lytton for the recep- 
tion of himself and party. The streets had been watered, 
and there was just the suspicion of a cool breeze from the 
Hbogly, which, after the distress of a long night ride, 
made our morning drive pleasant. A line of native police- 
men was formed for a distance of about two miles, from 
the railway-station to the door of the Government House, 
who saluted the General as he drove along. The Govern- 
ment House is a large, ornate building, standing in a park 
or open square, and was built in 1804. The corner-stone 
was laid about the time that Washington laid the founda- 
tion of the Capitol. The cost of the building was $750,000. 
It is a noble, stately building, and may rank with any of 

638 



AROUND THE WORLD. 639 

the palaces in Europe, while it is smaller and less preten- 
tious than many of them. The idea of the Government 
House is a central building, with four outlying blocks, 
which form wings. There are magnificent council-rooms 
and a reception-room, which joins to the state dining-room. 
The two ideas which govern the architecture of the Gov- 
ernment Houses in India are comfort and sj^lendor — com- 
fort, in order that the European may live ; splendor, in 
order that the eye and imagination of the Oriental may be 
dazzled. It is rather odd at first to see the cold-blooded, 
indifierent, matter-of-fact Englishman, who at home only 
cares for practical things, as solicitous about pomp and 
ceremony as a court chamberlain. This is because pomp 
and ceremony are among the essentials of the government 
of India. 

Of the public buildings, the Fort is, perhaps, the most 
important. It was begun by Clive, after the battle of Plas- 
sey, and cost $10,000,000. It mounts 600 guns, and is a 
strong work in good preservation. This is the home of the 
Commander-in-Chief of the army. Thei;e is a town hall 
in the Doric style, with some large rooms for public enter- 
tainments. The Court-House is a Gothic pile, with a mas- 
sive tower. In Dalhousie Square is the Currency Office, a 
large building in the Indian style of architecture. The 
Mint stands on the river-bank. It is comjDOsed of two 
buildings, which, with the grounds, cover a space of eigh- 
teen and one-half acres, and is said to be the largest mint 
in the world. There is a Custom House, a bonded ware- 
house, and a block known as the Writers' Buildings, where 
young men find homes when they come to India. The 
new Post-Ofiice, with its Corinthian columns and dome, is 
a handsome building, while the new telegraph office is large 
and imposing. The Metcalf Hall is where the agricultural 
shows are held, and the Dalhousie Institute is erected as a 



640 GRANT'S TOUR 

kind of Pantheon, " a monumental edifice, to contain witliin 
its walls statues and busts of great men." Most of the 
statues are of men who won fame in the mutiny. The St. 
Paul's Cathedral cost $250,000, arid is the metroiDolitan 
church of the Episcopal diocese of Calcutta. There are 
several monuments and memorial windows to famous Anglo- 
Indians, among them a superb monument to the wise and 
saintly Heber, whose name is one of the glories of British 
civilization in India. The statue is by Chantrey, and it 
represents the illustrious divine in the robes of his holy 
office kneeling in prayer. There are other churches — 
seventeen Protestant, eight Roman Catholic, and six mis- 
cellaneous. The old Mission Church is a curious building. 
The Scotch Church is a handsome Grecian edifice. There 
is a free Scotch Church, built through the efforts of Dr. 
Duff, and chapels of the Wesleyan and Baptist denom- 
inations. There are no Hindoo temples in Calcutta, the 
people worshipping in their houses or on the banks of the 
river, which is one of the sacred rivers of India. Some of 
the wealthy Hindoos have apartments in their houses where 
gods are worshipped, but the great body of the people sim- 
ply go to the river, bathe and pray, a form of faith which 
promotes cleanliness as well as godliness. There are sev- 
eral mosques, the finest being one erected by the son of 
Tippoo Sultan " in gratitude to God and in commemoration 
of the Honorable Court of Directors granting him the 
arrears of his stipend in 1840." 

The annual convocation for conferring degrees of the 
University took place while General Grant was in Calcutta. 
The General, accompanied by Sir Ashley Eden, Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal, and Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, the 
Vice-Chancellor, attended the convocation. The General 
and the Bishop of Calcutta sat on the Vice-Chancellor's 
right and Sir Ashley Eden on his left. Degrees were con- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 643 

ferred upon students from the various colleges throughout 
India, and the Viee-Chancellor made a speech which con- 
tained some interesting references to education in India. 
"The present scheme of^Indian education," said Sir Alex- 
ander, " came into operation the year of the mutiny, and 
the two and twenty years it had been in existence showed 
gratifying results." The speaker found reason for congrat- 
ulation in the fact that the Senate had passed rules for the 
examination of female candidates, and that under these 
rules a Hindoo young lady had passed with high credit. 
There was an increasing desire among the young men of 
Bengal that their wives and daughters should be educated. 
In conclusion. Sir Alexander made the following allusion 
to the presence of General Grant: — 

Gentlemen, before I sit down, I must ask permission to offer 
the respectful but cordial thanks of the university to the dis- 
tinguished American soldier and statesman who is seated on my 
right, for having bonored this convocation by his presence. In 
General Grant we see a conspicuous instance of that devotion to 
duty, that tenacity of purpose, that quiet but indomitable energy 
whicli characterizes the best men, not only of the Anglo-Saxon, 
but of every race. Alike. to us who have long been engaged in 
the business of life, and to you who are now about to enter upon 
it, the career of General Grant furnishes a remarkable example 
of duties faithfully and eflficieiitly discharged, and of difficulties 
successfully overcome ; and here let me remind you that there 
is no sphere of duty, however limited, no position in life, how- 
ever humble, in which the contemplation of such an example is 
without its value. 

One of the sights to be seen here is the native money- 
changers, who, in their little room, offer to exchange your 
coin for that of India. 

The Viceroy received General Grant with great kind- 
ness. Lord Lytton said he was honored in having as his 
guest a gentleman whose career he had so long followed 



644 GRANT'S TOUR 

with interest and respect, and that it was especially agree- 
able to him to meet one who had been chief magistrate of 
a country in which he had sj)ent three of the happiest 
years of his life. Lord Lytton h:&,d reference to his resi- 
dence in Washington as a member of the British Lega- 
tion, during the time when his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, 
was Minister to the United States. The Viceroy regretted 
that the duties of his office, which, on account of Burmese 
and Afghan complications and his dejDarture for Simla, 
were unusually pressing, prevented his seeing as much of 
the members of the General's party as he wished. In the 
afternoon we drove around the city and listened to the 
band. All the English world of Calcutta sjoend the cool 
of the day in the gardens, and the General and the Vice- 
roy had a long stroll. 

The next day was given to an excursion up the Hoogly, 
to the Viceroy's country-seat at Barrackpoor. At the last 
moment, Lord Lytton found he could not go, and the honors 
of the day were done in his name by Sir Ashley Eden. 
Barrackpoor is about twelve miles up the river, and the 
hour for our departure was noon. We drove to the dock 
under a beating sun, and embarked on the Viceroy's 
yacht. The j)arty was a small one, comprising the lead- 
ing members of the government, with their families. The 
scenery along the river reminds you somewhat of the low, 
tropical banks of the St. John's, in Florida. The stream 
is narrower, and had a gloomy look comj)ared with the 
Florida river, where the orange groves light up the dark- 
green landscape. Unlike the St. John's, the Hoogly teems 
with life — with boatmen in all kinds of floating contrivances 
bringing breadstufiPs and merchandise to the Calcutta mar- 
kets, or carrying home the results of the day in the bazaars. 

We had a merry, pleasant feast under our banyan-tree, 
which is one of the most extraordinary forms of nature. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 645 

This tree was in itself a small grove, and you could walk 
in and around and through its trunks and branches as easily 
as through the columns of a mosque. Unless the tree is 
checked, it will spread and spread, every branch as it touches 
the earth seeking a new root and throwing out new branches 
until an army could encamp under its branches, sheltered 
from the tempest and the sun. We came back to the city 
late in the afternoon, when the evening shadows had fallen 
and it was pleasant to steam down the river. It was dark 
before we reached the Government House, and we had just 
time to dress for a state dinner, the last to be given by 
Lord Lytton before leaving Simla. This dinner was made 
the occasion for presenting to General Grant the leading- 
members of the native families. We had had a reception 
of this kind in Bombay, but the scene in Calcutta was 
more brilliant. When the dinner was over and Lord 
Lytton had escorted Mrs. Grant to the reception-room, the 
halls were filled with a brilliant and picturesque assembly. 
A company of native gentlemen looks like a fancy dress 
ball. There is no rule governing their costumes. They 
are as free to choose the color and texture of their gar- 
ments as ladies at home. I cannot but think that our 
heathen friends have learned better than ourselves the les- 
son of dress, especially for the tropics. 

The native gentlemen and princes of high rank were 
presented by the Viceroy to General Grant. Some of 
these names were the foremost in India. Some are de- 
posed princes, or descendants of deposed princes. Others 
were Brahmins of high caste ; some rich bankers and 
merchants. The son of the King of Oude came with his 
son. He has an effeminate, weak face. On his head he 
wore a headdress shaped like a crown and covered with 
gold foil and lace. The King of Oude lives in Calcutta, 
on an allowance of $600,000 a year. He does not come 



646 GRANT'S TOUR 

near the Government House, partly because lie is so fat 
that he cannot move about, except in a chair, more prob- 
ably because he is a kind of state prisoner on account of 
his supposed sympathies with the mutiny. The old king 
spends a good share of his income in buying animals. He 
has a collection of snakes, and is fond of a peculiar kind 
of pigeon. A pigeon with a blue eye will bring him good 
fortune, and if one of his Brahmin priests tells him that 
the possession of such a bird is necessary to his happiness, 
he buys it. Kecently he paid £1,000 for a pigeon on the 
advice of a holy Brahmin, who, it was rumored, had an 
interest in the sale. Not long since the king made a pur- 
chase of tigers, and was about to buy a new and choice lot, 
when the Lieutenant-Governor interfered and said his 
Majesty had tigers enough. My admiration for the kingly 
office is so profound that I like it best in its eccentric 
aspects, and would have rejoiced to have seen so original 
a majesty. But his Majesty is in seclusion with his snakes, 
his tigers, his pigeons, his priests and his women, and 
sees no one, and we had to be content with seeing his son. 
The Prince seemed forlorn with his bauble crown, his 
robes and his gems, and hid behind the pillars and in 
corners of the room, and avoided general conversation. 
Another noted Prince was the descendant of Tippoo Sultan, 
a full-bodied, eager Moslem Prince, with a flowing beard 
and character in the lines of his face. This Prince has 
been in England, talks English well, and is a legal sub- 
ject of the Crown. ' 

More interesting was the young Prince from Burmah 
and his wife. They are refugees, and under the protec- 
tion of the viceregal court. The Princess was a pretty 
little lady, with almost European features, and was the 
cynosure of the evening. Mrs. Grant had quite a conver- 
sation with her, and was struck with her vivacity and in- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



647 



telligence. The General conversed with most of the natives 
present- — with all, indeed, who spoke English — and in- 
formed the Viceroy that he regarded the opportunity of 
meeting them as among the most agreeable and interesting- 
features of his Indian journey. 

The Viceroy being obliged to leave the city, he had a 
long and almost affectionate interview with the General, 
who thanked him for the splendor and hospitality of our 




THE REFUGEES FROM BURMAH. 



reception in India. It was pleasant for us to meet in Lord 
Lytton a nobleman who not only knew America in a pub- 
lic way, but had a familiar acquaintance with Washington 
city. The capital when Lord Lytton lived there, and the 
capital to-day are, as the General told the Viceroy, very 
much changed. The flood has come. The Viceroy spoke 
of Everett, Webster, and Clay, and the men he knew ; of 
ladies and gentlemen who flourished under Tyler and Fil- 



648 GRANT'S TOUR 

more, and were leaders of society, but who have vanished. 
It was pleasant to hear the Viceroy speak with so much 
cordiality and good feeling and appreciation of America, 
and when our talk ran into political questions at home, and 
party lines, it was gratifying to hear him say that he could 
not comprehend how an American, who believed in his 
country, could sustain any policy that did not confirm and 
consolidate the results of the war. Whatever the merits 
of the war in the beginning, the end was to make America 
an empire, to put our country among the great nations of 
the earth, and such a position was now every American's 
heritage, and the defence of which should be his first 
thought. 

We left Calcutta at midnight, in order to catch the 
tides in the Hoogly, on board the steamer Simla, of the 
British-India Navigation Company, commanded by Captain 
Franks, a young and able officer. The Simla was as pleas- 
ant and comfortable as though it had been our own yacht, 
and our run across the Bay of Bengal was over a summer 
sea. The nights were so warm that it was impossible to 
sleep in our cabins, and we found as good accommodations 
as we could lying about the deck. It adds something to 
the felicity of travel in the tropics to be on the ground, 
as it were, and look at the stars, but the disagreeable part 
is the early rising. For with the dawn come the coolies, 
with broom and bucket, to scrub the decks. This conduces 
to early rising, and we can all say that since coming into 
the troj)ics there is scarcely a morning when we have not 
seen the sun rise. Being roused out at dawn was never 
regarded as a hardship by any but the Doctor and the 
Colonel, w^hose views as to the rest and nourishment of the 
human frame are conservative and not amenable to radical 
and disturbing influences. But, although the habits of 
civilization resent this rising with the sun, it becomes in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 649 

time one of the pleasures of the tropics. Then, if ever, 
you have whatever cool breezes come from the sea ; you 
are sheltered from the imperious sun, and if the brush and 
broom coolie comes to disturb you, your own servant comes 
also to comfort you with a ciip of tea and a morsel of toast, 
and the fresh morning hours are all your own for reading, 
writing,' or meditation. 

We sailed up the river to Rangoon and arrived at the 
wharf about noon. A fierce sun was blazing, and the 
whole landscape seemed baked, so stern was the heat. 
Rangoon is the principal city of Burmah, and seen from 
the wharf is a low-lying, straggling town. Two British 
men-of-war were in the harbor, who manned their yards 
in honor of the General. All the vessels in the stream 
were dressed, and the jaunty little Simla streamed with 
flags. The landing was covered with scarlet cloth, and the 
American and British standards were blended. All the 
town seemed to be out, and the river-bank was lined with 
the multitude, who looked on in their passive Oriental 
fashion at the pageant. As soon as our boat came to the 
wharf, Mr. Aitcheson, the Commissioner, came on board, 
accompanied by Mr. Leishmann, the American Vice-Con- 
sul, and bade the General welcome to Burmah. On land- 
ing, the General was presented to the leading citizens and 
officials and the officers of the men-of-war. The guard 
of honor presented arms and we all drove away to the 
Government House, a pretty, commodious bungalow in the 
suburbs, buried among trees. Mr. Aitcheson, our host, is 
one of the most distinguished officers in the Indian service. 
He was for some time Foreign Secretary at Calcutta. 
Burmah, however, is already one of the most important 
of the British colonies in Asia, and this importance is not 
diminished by the critical relations between British Burmah 
and the court of the King. Consequently, England re- 



650 GRANT'S TOUR 

quires the best service possible in Burmah, and, as a result 
of her policy of sending her wisest men to the most useful 
places, Mr. Aitcheson finds himself in Kangoon. We may 
be said, in fact, to have arrived in Burmah during a crisis, 
and we had read in the Calcutta papers of the deep feeling 
created throughout Burmah by the atrocities of the new 
King, who had murdered most of his relatives and was 
talking about taking off the head of the British Besident 
at Mandalay. We also read that there was excitement 
among the people, commotion, a universal desire for the 
punishment of this worthless king, and the annexation of 
Upper Burmah. I expected to find the streets of Bangoon 
lined with people, as at home during an exciting election 
canvass, clamoring against the King, demanding the benef- 
icent rule of England. I only saw the j^atient, dreamy, 
plodding Asiatic bearing his burdens like his brethren in 
India, content if he can assure a mess of rice for his food 
and a scrap of muslin for his loins. As to the rest, accept 
it as an axiom, that when the moral sensibilities of the 
English statesmen in India become so outraged as to become 
uncontrollable it means more territory. 

Our days in Bangoon were pleasant. The town is in- 
teresting. It is Asiatic, and at the same time not Indian. 
You have left Hindostan, and all the forms of that vivid 
and extraordinary -civilization, and you come upon a new 
people. Here you meet John, the inscrutable John, who 
troubles you so much in California, and whose fate is the 
gravest problem of our day. You see Chinese signs on the 
houses, Chinese workmen on the streets, shops where you 
can drink toddy and smoke opium. This is the first ripple 
we have seen of that teeming emjjire towards which we 
are steering. Bolitically, Burmah is a part of \h^ British 
Empire, but it is really one of the outposts of China, and 
from now until we leave Japan we shall be under the in- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 651 

fluence of China. The Hindoos you meet are from Madras, 
a different type from those we saw on our tour. The Bur- 
mese look like Chinese to our unskilled eyes, and it is pleas- 
ant to see women on the streets and in society. The streets 
are wide and rectangular, like those of Philadelphia, and 
the shade-trees are grateful. Over the city, on a height, 
which you can see from afar, is a pagoda, one of the most 
famous in Asia. It is covered with gilt, and in the even- 
ing, when we first saw it, the sun's rays made it dazzling. 
We knew from the pagoda that in leaving India, and 
coming to Burmah, we leave the land of Brahma, and come 
to the land of Buddha, and that remarkable religion called 
Buddhism. 

The institution of caste, upon which the Hindoo faith 
and the whole structure of Hindoo society rests, is not 
known in Buddhism. There is no priestly class like the 
Brahmins, claiming grotesque, selfish, and extraordinary 
privileges, descending from father to son, claiming honors 
almost divine, and teaching that all the good things of the 
world are especially intended for the Brahmins. The 
priests, like those in the Catholic Church, are taken from 
any rank in life. They do not marry. They deny them- 
selves all pleasures of the sense, live a monastic life, dress 
in yellow gowns (yellow being a sacred color), shave their 
heads and beards, and walk barefooted. They live in 
common, eat in common. When they sleep, it is in a 
sitting posture. They go to church, pray, chant hymns, 
make offerings to their gods, — principal among them a 
statue of Buddha, — sometimes alone, sometimes with his 
disciples. The statue of Buddha holds the same position 
in the temples of his faith that the statue of our Saviour 
holds in the Catholic churches. As you go into these 
temples you are impressed with other forms of resemblance 
between the two systems of worship. The priests go in 

38 



652 GRANT'S TOUR 

procession. They chant hymns and prayers and burn in- 
cense. They carry strings of beads like the rosary, which 
they count and fumble as they say their prayers. There 
is no single solemn ceremony like the sacrifice of the mass. 
Priests and people kneel before the images, surrounded 
with blazing wax lights, the air heavy with incense. They 
pray together, the priests only known by the yellow gowns. 
They pray kneeling, with clasped, uplifted hands. Some- 
times they hold in their hands a rose, or a morsel of rice, 
or a fragment of bread as an offering. During their prayers 
they frequently bend their bodies, so that the face touches 
the ground. There are convents for women. The temples 
are places of rest and refuge. Hither come the unfortu- 
nate, the poor, the needy, the halt and blind, the belated 
traveller. All are received, and all are given food and 
alms. As you walk into the temples, it is generally 
through a lane of unfortunates, in all stages of squalor 
and wretchedness, abandoned by the world. Trays or 
basins of iron are stretched along the road in Avhich at- 
tendants pour uncooked rice. Animal life is held sacred, 
and a Buddhist temple looks like a barn-yard, a village 
pound, and a church combined. Cows, parrots, monkeys, 
dogs, beggars, children, priests, sight-seers, devotees — all 
mingle and blend on a footing of friendliness, the animals 
fearing no harm, the men meaning none, A Buddhist 
priest will not kill an animal. His sacrifices do not in- 
volve bloodshed. Before he sits on the ground he will 
carefully brush it, lest he might unwittingly crush an ant 
or a worm. This respect for animal life is so strong that 
some priests will wear a gauze cloth over mouth and nos- 
trils, lest they inadvertently inhale some of the smaller in- 
sects which live in the air. I am curious to know what 
would become of this tenet of their religion, if they were 
to examine the air or water with a microscope. I am 



AJ^OliWn THE WORLD. 653 

afraid tlie discoveries of tlie microscope would bring sor^ 
row and shame to thousands of believing souls. 

Our first visit was to the famous pagoda, which rests 
upon Rangoon like a crown of gold, its burnished splendor 
seen from afar. The pagoda is in the centre of a park of 
about two acres, around wdiich are fortifications. These 
fortifications were defended by the Burmese during their 
war with the English, and in the event of a sudden out- 
break, or a mutiny, or a war, would at once be occupied. 
During the Burmese wars the pagoda was always used as a 
fort, and now, in the event of an alarm, or an invasion, or 
a mutiny, the troops and people would at once take posses- 
sion. Ever since that horrible Sunday afternoon in Meerut, 
when the Sepoys broke out of their barracks* burned every 
house, and butchered every woman and child in the European 
quarter, all these Asiatic settlements have a place of refuge 
to which the population can fly. A small guard was on 
duty as we passed \x^ the ragged steps that led to the pagoda. 
There was an ascent of seventy-five feet up a series of steps 
— a gentle and not a tiresome ascent, if you looked care- 
fully and did not stumble among the jagged and crumbling 
stones. On either side of the way were devotees at prayers, 
or beggars waiting for their rice, or booths where you could 
buy false pearls, imitation diamonds, beads, packages of 
gold-leaf, flowers and cakes. The trinkets and flowers are 
given as offerings to Buddha. The gold-leaf is sold for 
acts of piety. If the devout Buddhist has a little money, 
he lays it out on the pagoda. He buys a package of the 
gold-leaf and covers with it some dingy spot on the pagoda, 
an^ adds his mite to the glory of the temple. No one is 
so poor that he cannot make some offering. We observed 
several devout Buddhists at work patching the temple with 
their gold foil. On the top of the temple is an umbrella or 
cap covered with precious stones. This was a royal offer- 
ing, and was placed here some years since with great pomp. 



CHAPTEE XXXiy. 

SAILING DOWN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA FAEEWELL TO 

INDIA A VISIT TO SIAM A LETTER FROM THE KING 

ALMOST AN ACCIDENT IMPRESSIONS OF BANGKOK 

THE VENICE OF THE EAST LANDING IN BANGKOK 

A VISIT TO THE EX-REGENT THE REGENT THE 

KING A ROYAL VISIT — -INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE 

GENERAL AND THE KING — STATE DINNER AT THE 

PALACE SPEECH OF THE KING OF SIAM THE GEN- 

ERAL's REPLY FAREWELL TO THE KING. 

It was pleasant, writes one of the travellers, to sail down 
the Straits of Malacca and along the coast of Burmali in a 
comfortable and swift steamer called the Simla, commanded 
by Captain Franks. After leaving Rangoon we ran across 
to the little town of Maulmain. Here General Grant and 
party were received by Colonel Duff, the British Commis- 
sioner. There was a guard of honor at the wharf, and a 
gathering of what appeared to be the whole town. The 
evening after we arrived there was a dinner given by the 
Maulmain Volunteer Rifles — a militia organization com- 
posed of the merchants of Maulmain and young men in 
the service of the Government. This dinner was given in 
the messroom of the company — a little bungalow in the 
outskirts of the town. The next morning there was a visit 
to the wood-yards, where teak-wood is sawed and sent as 
an article of commerce into various countries. The te^- 
tree is a feature in the commerce and the industry of the 
peninsula, and is said to be the most durable timber in 
Asia. The Javanese name for teak illustrates its char- 
acter, meaning true, real, genuine. It is only found in 

654. 



AROUND THE WORLD. ^f)h 

a few places, being quite unknown in parts of India and 
the adjoining islands. Most of the wood comes, I was 
told, from Java, and we found in Maulmain and Kan- 
goon large and flourishing industries devoted to teak. 
What most interested us in our visit to the yards was 
the manner in which the elephant is used as an animal of 
burden. 

In taking our leave of our kind friends in Burmah we 
were taking leave of India. Burmah is under the Calcutta 
government, and the Straits of Malacca are under the Home 
Colonial government, with a Governor at Singapore. These 
settlements are known as "the Straits Colony." They 
were acquired under the East Indian Company, the acqui- 
sition of Penang, to which we sailed on leaving Maulmain, 
being the work of the celebrated Warren Hastings. On 
leaving India, the first thing that occurs to all of our party 
— to no one more than to General Grant — is the splendid 
hospitality we have received. From the time of our arrival 
in Bombay, as the guest of Sir Bichard Temple, at Mala- 
bar Point, until we left Belvedere, the stately home of Sir 
Ashley Eden, in Calcutta, we have received nothing but 
kindness, unvarying and considerate. We have made a 
rapid tour — too rapid, indeed, to see the country as fully 
as we could wish. We are compelled to leave Madras and 
Ceylon unvisited, although we have had the most urgent 
invitations from the Duke of Buckingham, who governs 
Madras, and the Governor of Ceylon. But we came to 
India late, through waiting for the Bichmond, and even now 
the Europeans in India who can go are flying to the hills 
to escajDC the sun. The Viceroy only remained long enough 
to see General Grant, and we all feel the heat so severely 
that even the General himself — a severe and merciless 
traveller, who cares little for the fatigue of journeying or 
the exactions of the climate — is counting the days until 



65Q GRANT'S TOUR 

we pass the Straits and steer towards tlie more temperate 
zones of China and Japan. 

The question of General Grant's visit to Siam was for 
some days in abeyance. It was out of our way to China 
and the means of communication were irregular, and none 
of us took any special interest in Siam — our available 
knowledge of the country being that there were once 
famous Siamese twins. Moreover, and this fact I cannot 
as a conscientious historian conceal, there is a feeling of 
homesickness among some of the party, which finds relief 
in looking at the map and drawing the shortest lines of 
travel between SingajDore and San Francisco, and any sug- 
gestion of departure from these lines is unwelcome. But 
in Singapore we met many merchants and prominent au- 
thorities who had been in Siam, and the universal testimony 
was that a visit around the world would be incomplete un- 
less it included that most interesting country. Then on 
landing at Singaj)ore our Consul, Major Struder, met the 
General with a letter from the King of Siam — a letter en- 
closed in an envelope made of blue satin. The text of the 
letter was as follows: — 

The Grand Palace, Bangkok, 4tli Teb., 1879. 
My Dear Sir : — Having heard from my Minister for For- 
eign Affairs, on the authority of the United States Consul, that 
you are expected in Singapore on your way to Bangkok, I beg 
to express the pleasure I shall have in making your acquaintance. 
Possibly' you may arrive in Bangkok during my absence at my 
country residence, Bang Pa In. In which case a steamer will be 
placed at your disposal to bring you to me. On arrival, I beg you 
to commu.nicate with His Excellency, my Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, who will arrange for your reception and entertainment. 
Yours, very truh^ CHULAHLONGKOEN, E. S. 

To General Grant, late President of the United States. 

The letter of the King, which he had taken the trouble 
to send all the way to Singapore, added to the opinion ex- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 657 

pressed by the General that when people really go around 
the world they might as well see what is to be seen, decided 
the visit to Siam. A despatch had been received from Cap- 
tain Benham, commanding the Kichmond, that he would 
be at Galle on the 12th, which would enable him to reach 
Singapore about the time that we returned from Siam'. 
This was a consideration, especially to the homesick peojole, 
who felt that there would be compensation in meeting Amer- 
icans — in being once more among citizens of the greatest 
country of the world, with whom we could talk intelligently 
on sensible themes. So a letter was addressed to Captain 
Benham, asking him to await us by stopping at Singapore, 
and our party prepared for Siam. 

On the morning of the 14th of April, land was around 
us, and there w^as a calm, smooth sea. At ten we came 
to the bar, where we were to expect a steamer or a tug. 
We all doffed our ship garments, and came out in ceremoni- 
ous attires to meet our friends, the Siamese. But there was 
no crossing the bar, and for hours and hours we waited, and 
no steamer came. It seems that we had made so rapid a 
trip that no one .was expecting us, and there we were in the 
mud, on a bar, and Siam before us, within an hour's sail 
of Paknam. The day passed and the night came, and at 
ten the tides would be high, and we w^ould slip over the 
mud and be at our anchorage at eleven, and up to Bang- 
kok in the cool of the morning, always so precious an ad- 
vantage in Eastern travel. At nine we began to move 
under the guidance of a pilot, and after moving about for 
an hour or so, to the disappointment of those of us on 
deck, who watched the lights on shore and were impatient 
for Paknam, we heard the engines reverse, we felt the ship 
back with throbbing sj)eed, and in a few minutes the 
grumbling of the cable as the anchor leaped into the 
water. There was no Paknam, no Siam, for that night. 



65S GRANT'S TOUR 

The pilot had lost his way, and instead of a channel, we 
were rapidly going on the shore, when the captain discov- 
ered the error, and stopped the ship. Well, this was a 
disappointment, and largely confirmatory of the views 
shared by some of us that Providence never would smile 
on our trip to Siam ; but the rain came, and the sea be- 
came angry and chopping, and rain and sea came into the 
berths, and all we could do was to cluster in the small cabin. 
We found, then, that our foolish pilot had taken us away 
out of our course, that we were on a mud bank, that it was 
a mercy we had not gone ashore, and that unless the royal 
yacht came for us there we would remain another day. 
About nine in the morning the news was passed that the 
royal yacht was coming, and about ten she anchored within 
a cable length, a long, stately craft, with the American colors 
at the fore, and the royal colors of Siam at the main. A 
boat came out to us, conveying Mr. Sickels, our Consul ; 
the son of the Foreign Minister, representing the Siamese 
government, and an aid of the King. Mr. Sickels pre- 
sented the Siamese officials to the General, and the King's 
aid handed him the following letter, enclosed in an envelope 
of yellow satin : — 

The Grand Palace, Bangkok, April 11, 1879. 

Sir : — I have very great pleasure in welcoming you to Siam. 
It is, I am informed, your pleasure that your reception should 
be a private one ; but you must permit me to show, as far as I 
can, the high esteem in which I hold the most eminent citizen 
of that great nation which has been so friendly to Siam, and so 
kind and just in all its intercourse with the nations of the far 
East. 

That you may be near me during your stay, I have commanded 
my brother, his Poj^al Highness the Celestial Prince Bhanurangsi 
Swangwongse, to prepare rooms for you and your party in the 
Saranrom Palace, close to my palace ; and I most cordially in- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 659 

vite you, Mrs. Grant, and your party at once to take up your 
residence there, and my brother will represent me as your host. 
Your friend, 

CHULAHLONGKORN, R. S. 
His Excellency General Gkant, late President of the United 
States. 

We went on board the royal yacht in a fierce sea and 
under a pouring rain. There was almost an accident as 
the boat containing the General, Mrs. Grant, and Mr. Borie 
came alongside. The high sea dashed the boat against the 
paddle-wheels of the yacht, which were in motion. The 
movement of the paddle pressed the boat under the water, 
the efforts of the boatmen to extricate it were unavailing, 
and it seemed for a few minutes as if it would founder ; 
but it righted, and the members of the party were taken 
on deck drenched with the sea and rain. This verging 
upon an accident had enough of the spirit of adventure 
about it to make it a theme of the day's conversation, and 
we complimented Mrs. Grant upon her calmness and forti- 
tude at a time when it seemed inevitable that she would be 
plunged into the sea under the moving paddles of a steamer. 
Even the rain was tolerable after so serious an experience, 
and it rained all the way up the river. Paknam was the 
first point at which we stopped, and then only long enough 
to send a despatch to the King that the General had ar- 
rived and was now on his way to Bangkok. Paknam is a 
collection of small huts or bamboo houses built on logs. 
The river on which it is built is called the Meinam, and 
it rises so high, especially in th? rainy season when the 
floods come, that houses become islands, and there is no 
way of moving except in boats. Oj^posite the town is a 
small island containing a pagoda, in which is buried the 
ashes of some of the ancient kings of Siam. The rain ob- 
scured our view of the river as we slowly steamed up, the 



660 



GRANT'S TOUR 



distance from Bangkok to the mouth being about eight 
leagues from the sea. The banks were low, the vegeta- 
tion dense and green, and running down into the water. 
The land seemed to overhang the water, and the foliage 
to droop and trail in it, very much as you see it on 
the St. John's Kiver in Florida, or some of the bayous in 
Louisiana. 




SCENE ON THE MEINAM ABOVE BANGKOK. 

We came to BangkoS; late in the afternoon. The rain 
lulled enough to allow us to see at its best this curious city. 
Our first view was of the houses of the consuls. The 
Siamese government provides houses for the foreign consuls, 
and they all front on the river, with large and pleasant 
grounds about them, and flagstaffs from which flags are 



AROUND THE WORLD. 661 

floating. We stopped in front of the American Consulate 
long enough to allow Miss Struder, who had been a fellow- 
j^assenger from Singapore, to go on shore, and the Vice- 
Consul, Mr. Torrey, to come on board and pay his respects 
to the General. Then we kept on for two or three miles 
until we came to our landing in front of the International 
Court-House. Bangkok seems to be a city composed of 
houses lining two banks of a river. It contains, according 
to some authorities, half a million of people, but census 
statistics in the East are not to be depended upon. It 
would not have surprised me if I had been told that there 
were a million of souls housed in that long and teeming 
bank of huts and houses through which we kejot steaming 
and steaming until it seemed as if the town would never 
end. All varieties of huts lined the shore. Small vessels, 
like the Venetian gondola, moved up and down, propelled 
by boatmen, who paddled with small paddles, accompany- 
ing their work with a short, gasping shout, " Wah, wah, 
wall." Close to the water's edge were floating houses — 
houses built on rafts — meant to rise and fall with the tide 
and which the owner could unship and take away if his 
neighbors became disagreeable. Most of these floating 
houses were occupied by Chinese merchants, who had their 
wares, crockery, cloths, jDottery, bamboo-chairs and fruits 
arranged, while they sat squatted on the floor smoking 
small pipes, with no garments but loosely fitting trousers 
— smoking opium, I suppose, and looking out for customers. 
Each house has an inscription, on a tinted j)aper, generally 
scarlet printed with gold — a legend, or a jjroverb, or a 
compliment. Chinese junks are at anchor, and, as you 
look at the huge, misshapen craft, you have a renewed 
sense of the providence of God that such machines can go 
and come on the sea. The prow of each vessel has two 
large, glaring, grotesque eyes — it being a legend of the 



662 



GRANT'S TOUR 



Chinese mariner that two eyes are as necessary to a ship 
as to a man. Boats are paddled slowly along in which 
are persons wearing yellow garments, with closely-shaven 
crowns. These are priests of the Buddhist faith, who wear 
yellow as a sacred color, and who are now on their way 
to some temple, or more likely to beg. Above these dense 
lines of huts and floating houses you see the towers of the 
city, notably the great Pagoda, one of the wonders of the 
East, a mass of mosaic, marbles, and precious stones, from 
which the three-headed elej^hant, sacred to Siam and the 
transmigration of the Lord Buddha, looks down upon the 
city, keeping watch and ward over the faithful. 




THE KING'S CHIEF COUNSELLOR. 



You are told that Bangkok is the Venice of the East, 
which means that it is a city of canals. When the tides 
are high, you go in all directions in boats. Your Broadway 
is a canal. You go shopping in a boat. You stroll in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 663 

your covered gondola lying prone on your back, sheltered 
from the sun, dozing the fierce, warm hours away, while 
your boatmen and/ other boatmen passing and repassing 
shout their plaintive "Wah-wah." You see the house of 
the Foreign Minister, a palace with a terrace, a veranda 
and a covered way sloping towards the river. You see a 
mass of towers and roofs surrounded by a wall. This is 
the palace of the first King, the supreme King, of Siam. 
Beyond is another mass of towers and roofs where resides 
the second King. Happy Siam has two sovereigns — a 
first King who does everything, whose power is absolute, and 
a second King who does nothing excej^t draw a large income. 
This second King, oddly enough, is named George Wash- 
ington, having been so named by his father, who admired 
Americans. Finally, we come to the royal landing, and we 
note that the banks are lined with soldiers. 

At four o'clock the General embarked on a royal gon- 
dola, seven fathoms long. He was slowly j)ulled to shore. 
The guard 23resented arms, the cavalry escort wheeled into 
line, the band played " Hail Columbia." On ascending 
the stairs, Mr. Alabaster, the royal interpreter; Captain 
Bush, an English officer commanding the Siamese Navy, 
and a brilliant retinue were in waiting. The Foreign Min- 
ister advanced and welcomed the General to Siam, and pre- 
sented him to the other members of the suite. Then enter- 
ing carriages the General and party were driven to the 
Palace of Hwang Saranrom, the home of His Koyal High- 
ness the Celestial Prince Bhanurangsi Swangwongse. As 
we drove past the barracks the artillery were drawn up in 
battery and the cannon rolled out a salute of twenty-one 
guns. On reaching the j^alace a guard was drawn up and 
another band played the American national air. At the 
gate of the palace Phra Sri Dhammason, of the foreign 
office, met the General and escorted him to the door of the 



664 GRANT'S TOUR 

palace. Here lie was met by His Excellency Phya Baslia- 
karawangse, the King's private secretary, and a nobleman 
of rank corresponding to that of an English earl. At the 
head of the marble steps was His Royal Highness the 
Celestial Prince, wearing the decorations of the Siamese 
orders of nobility, surrounded by other princes of a lesser 
rank, and the members of his household. Advancing, he 
shook hands with the General, and, offering his arm to 
Mrs. Grant, led the party i(^ the grand audience-chamber. 
Here all the party were presented to the Prince and there 
was a short conversation. The Celestial Prince is a young 
man about twenty, with a clear, expressive face, who speaks 
English fairly well, but, during our interview, sjDoke Si- 
amese, through Mr. Alabaster, who acted as interpreter. 
The Prince lamented the weather, which was untimely and 
severe. However, it would be a blessing to the country 
and the people, and His Royal Highness added a compli- 
ment that was Oriental in its delicacy when he said that 
the blessing of the rain was a blessing which General 
Grant had brought with him to Siam. The Prince then 
said that this palace was the General's home, and he had 
been commanded by the King, his brother, to say that 
anything in the kingdom that would contribute to the 
happiness, comfort, or the honor of General Grant, was at 
his disposal. The Prince entered into conversation with 
Mrs. Grant and the members of the General's party. The 
General expressed himself delighted with the cordiality of 
his welcome, and said he had been anxious to see Siam, 
and he would have regretted his inability to do so. The 
Prince offered his arm to Mrs. Grant, and escorted her and 
the General to their apartments, while the members of his 
suite assigned the remainder of the party to the quarters 
we were to occupy while we lived in the capital of Siam. 
The evening was passed quietly, the General and party 
dining quietly with the Celestial Prince. 



AROUND THE WORLD. ^Qih 

On the morning after our arrival a visit was made to 
the ex-Kegent. This aged statesman is one of the leading 
men in Siam, the first nobleman in the realm in influence 
and authority. He was the intimate friend and counsellor 
of the late king.- He governed the kingdom during the 
minority of the present sovereign. It was through his in- 
fluence that the accession of His Majesty was secured with- 
out question or mutiny. He is now the chief of the Coun- 
cil of State, and governs se^ral provinces of Siam with 
the power of life and death. His voice in council is potent, 
partly because of his rank and experience, partly because 
of his old age, which is always respected in Siam. Our 
journey to the Regent's was in boats in Venetian fashion, 
and after a half-hour's pulling down one canal and up an- 
other, and across the river to a third canal, and up that to 
a fourth, we came to a large and roomy palace shaded with 
trees. 

As our boat pulled up to the foot of the palace, the ex- 
Regent, his breast bearing many orders, was waiting to re- 
ceive the General. He was accompanied by Mr. Chandler, 
an American gentleman who has spent many years in Siam, 
and knows the language perfectly. The ex-Regent is a 
small, spare man, with a clean-cut, well-shaped head, and 
a face reminding you in its outlines, and the general set of 
the countenance, of the late M. Thiers. It lacked the 
vivacity which was the characteristic of M. Thiers, and 
was a grave and serious face. He advanced, shook hands 
with the General, and, taking his hand, led him up-stairs 
to the audience-ro.om of the palace. A guard of honor 
presented arms, the band played the " Star-Spangled Ban- 
ner," which was the first time we had heard that air in the 
East, all the other bands we had encountered laboring under 
the delusion that our national air was " Hail Columbia." 
The Regent led us into his audience-hall, and placing 



666 GRANT'S TOUR 

General Grant on his right, we all ranged ourselves about 
him on chairs. An audience with an Eastern prince is a 
serious and a solemn matter. It reminded me somewhat 
of the Friends' meetings I used to attend in Philadelphia, 
years and years ago, when the brethren were in meditation 
and waiting for the influence of the Holy Spirit. The 
Siamese is a grave person. He shows you honor by speak- 
ing slowly, saying little, and making pauses between his 
speeches. He eschews rapiil and flijopant speech, and a 
gay, easy talker would give offence. I need not say that 
this custom placed the General in an advantageous position. 
After you take your seat, servants begin to float around. 
They bring you tea in small china cu23s — tea of a delicate 
and pure flavor, and unlike our own attempts in that direc- 
tion. They bring you cigars, and in the tobacco way we 
noted a cigarette with a leaf made out of the banana plant, 
which felt like velvet between the lips, and is an improve- 
ment in the tobacco way which even the ripe culture of 
America on the tobacco question could with advantage ac- 
cept. In Siam you can smoke in every place, and before 
every presence, except in the presence of the King — an- 
other custom, which, I need hardly add, gave the General 
an advantage. The Regent, after some meditation, spoke 
of the great pleasure it had given him to meet General 
Grant in Siam. He had long known and valued the friend- 
ship of the United States, and he was sensible of the good 
that had been done to Siam by the counsel and the enter- 
prise of the Americans who had lived there. 

The General thanked the Regent, and was glad to know 
that his country was so much esteemed in the East. There 
was a pause, and a cuj) of the enticing tea, and some re- 
marks on the weather. The General expressed a desire to 
know whether the unusual rain would affect the crops 
throughout the country. The Regent said there was no 



AROUND THE WORLD. 667 

such apprehension, and there was another pause, while the 
velvet-coated cigarettes and cigars passed into general cir- 
culation. The General spoke of the value to Siam and to 
all countries in the East of the widest commercial inter- 
course with nations of the outer would, and that from all 
he could learn of the Siamese and the character of their 
resources, any extension of relations with other nations 
would be a gain to them. His Highness listened to this 
speech as Mr. Chandler translated it, in a slow, deliberate 
way, standing in front of the Regent, and intoning it al- 
most as though it were a lesson from the morning service. 
Then there was another pause, and some of us took more 
comfort out of the tea. Then the Regent responded :— 

Siam is a peculiar country. It is away from sympathy and 
communion with the greater nations. It is not in one of the 
great highways of commerce. Its people are not warlike or 
aggressive. It has no desire to share in the strifes and wars of 
other nations. It exists by the friendship of the great Powers. 
My policy has always been to cultivate that friendship, to do 
nothing to offend any foreign Power, to avoid controversy or 
pretexts for intervention by making every concession. This may 
look like timidity, but it is policy. Siam alone could do nothing 
■ against the great Powers. She values her independence and her 
institutions and the position she has maintained ; therefore she is 
always willing to meet every nation in a friendly spirit. Nor 
should the outside nations expect too much from Siam, nor be 
impatient with her for not adopting their ideas rapidly enough. 
Siam has her own ideas, and they had come down to the present 
generation from many generations. What I value in the relations 
of Siam with America is the unvarying sense of justice on the 
part of America, and as the hopes of Siam rest wholly on the 
good-will of foreign Powers, she is especially drawn to America. . 

All this was spoken slowly, deliberately, as if every 
sentence was weighed, the old Minister speaking slowly, 
like one in meditation. 

39 



668 



GRANT'S TOUR 



Concerning the King, the correspondent writes : — His 
Majesty, the first King of Siam and absohite sovereign, is 
nalned Chulahlongkorn. This, at least,' is the name which 
he attaches to the royal signet. His name, as given in the 
books, is PhrabatSoradetch Phra Paramendo Mahah Chiilah- 
long-korn Klow. On the afternoon of April 14, at three 
o'clock. General Grant 'and party had their audience with 
the King of Siam. Our Palace of Saranrom, in which we 





ONE OF THE KING'S BODY-GUARD. 



ONE OF THE OFFICERS OF THE 

KING OF SIAM. 



are living, is next to the Grand Palace ; but so vast are 
these royal homes that it was quite a drive to the house of 
our next door neighbor. The General and party went in 
state carriages, and at the door of the palace was met by 
an officer. Troops were drawn up all the way from the 
gate to the door of the audience-hall, and it was quite a 
walk before, having passed temples, shrines, outhouses, pa- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 669 

vilions, an?i statelier mansions, we came to tlae door of a 
modest building, and were met by aids of the King. A 
wide pair of marble steps led to the audience-room, and 
on each side of the steps were pots with blooming flowers 
and rare shrubs. The band in the court-yard j)layed the 
national air, and as the General came to the head of the 
stairs, the King, who was waiting, and wore a magnificent 
jewelled decoration, advanced and shook the hands of the 
General in the warmest manner. Then shaking hands 
with Mrs. Grant, he offered her his arm, and walked into 
the audience-hall. The audience-hall is composed of two 
large, gorgeously decorated saloons, that would not be out 
of place in any palace. The decorations were French, and 
reminded you of the Louvre. In the first hall was a series 
of busts of contemporary sovereigns and rulers of States. 
The place of honor was given to the bust of General Grant, 
a work of art in dark bronze, which did not look much 
like the General, and seems to have been made by a French 
or English artist from photographs. From here the King 
passed on to a smaller room, beautifully furnished in yellow 
satin. Here the King took a seat on the sofa, with Mrs. 
Grant and the General on either side, the members of 
the party on chairs near him, officers of the Court in the 
background, standing, and servants at the doors, kneel- 
ing in attitudes of submission. The King is a spare 
young man, active and nervous in his movements, with 
a full, clear, almost glittering black eye, which moved 
about restlessly from one to the other, and while he 
talked, his fingers seemed to be keeping unconscious 
time to the musical measures. When any of his Court 
approached him or were addressed by him they re- 
sponded by a gesture or salute of adoration. Everything 
about the King betokened a high and quick intelligence, 
and although the audience was a formal one, and the con- 



670 GRANT'S TOUR 

versation did not go beyond words of courte^ and wel- 
come from the King to the General and his party, he 
gave you the impression of a resolute and able man, full 
of resources, and quite equal to the cares of his station. 
This impression, I may add, was confirmed by all that we 
heard and saw in Siam. The audience at an end, the King 
led Mrs. Grant and the General to the head of the stairs, 
and we took our leave. 

At three o'clock on the 15th of April the King re- 
turned the General's visit by coming in state to see him at 
our Palace of Saranrom. This, we were told, was a most 
unusual honor, and was intended as the highest compliment 
it was in His Majesty's power to bestow. A state call from 
a king is evidently an event in Bangkok, and long before 
the hour the space in front of the palace was filled with 
curious Siamese and Chinese, heedless of the rain, waiting 
to gaze upon the celestial countenance. As the hour came 
there was the bustle of j)reparation. First came a guard, 
which formed in front of the palace ; then a smaller guard, 
which formed in the palace-yard, from the gate to the 
porch ; then a band of music, which stood at the rear of 
the inner guard ; then came attendants carrying staves in 
their hands to clear the street and give warning that the 
King was coming, that the street should be abandoned by 
all, so that majesty should have unquestioned way. Then 
came a squadron of the royal body-guard in a scarlet uni- 
form, under the command of a royal prince. The King 
sat in a carriage alone, on the back seat, with two princes 
with him who sat on front seats. His E-oyal Highness, our 
host, and the members of the household arrayed themselves 
in state garments, the Prince wearing a coat of purple silk. 
The General and his party wore evening dress, as worn at 
home on occasions of ceremony. When the trumpets an- 
nounced the coming of the King, the General, accompanied 



' AROUND THE WORLD. 671 

by the Prince, the members of his household and our party, 
came to the foot of the stairs. Colonel Grant, wearing the 
uniform of a lieutenant-colonel, waited at the gate to receive 
the King in his father's name. 

The General, as I have said, waited at the foot of the 
marble steps, and, as the King advanced, shook hands with 
him cordially and led him to the reception-room. The 
King was dressed in simple Siamese costume, wearing the 
decoration of Siam, but not in uniform. Mr. Alabaster, 
the interpreter, stood behind the King and the General. 
The King, who spoke Siamese, said he hoped that the Gen- 
eral had found everything comfortable for himself and 
party in the Saranrom Palace. 

The General said that nothing could be more agreeable 
than the hospitality of the Prince. 

The King said that he hoped that the General, if he 
wanted anything, to see any part of Siam, go anywhere or 
do anything, would express the wish, as he would feel it a 
great privilege to give him anything in his kingdom. 

General Grant said he appreciated the King's kindness, 
and thanked him. 

The King, after a pause, said that General Grant's 
visit was especially agreeable to him, because, not only in 
his own reign, but before, Siam had been under obligations 
to the United States. Siam saw in the United States not 
only a great but a friendly power, which did not look upon 
the East with any idea of aggrandizement, and to whom it 
was always pleasant to turn for counsel and advice. More 
than that, the influence of most of the Americans who had 
come to Siam had been good, and those who had been in 
the Government's service had been of value to the State. 
The efforts of the missionaries to spread a knowledge of 
the arts and sciences, of machinery and of medicine, among 
the Siamese, had been commendable. The King was glad 



672 GRANT'S TOUR 

to have the o^Dportunity of saying this to one who had been 
the Chief Magistrate of the American people. 

General Grant responded that the policy of the United 
States was a policy of non-intervention in everything that 
concerned the internal affairs of other nations. It had 
become almost a traditional policy, and experience con- 
firmed its wisdom. The country needed all the energies 
of its own people for its development, and its only interest 
in the East was to do what it could to benefit -the people, 
especially in opening markets for American manufactures. 
The General, in his travels through India and Burmah, 
had been much gratified with the commendations bestowed 
upon American products ; and, although the market was 
as yet a small one, he felt certain that our trade with the 
East would become a great one. There was the field, at 
least, and our people had the opportunity. Nothing would 
please him more than to see Siam sharing in this trade. 
Beyond this there was no desire on the part of the Ameri- 
can Government to seek an influence in the East. 

Soon after this the interview closed. The King rising, 
General Grant walked hand in hand with him to the foot 
of the stairs, the band played the national air, the cavalry 
escort formed in line, the princes and high officers walked 
to the carriage-door, and the King drove home to his 
palace. 

On the next morning there was a state dinner at the 
royal palace. The party consisted of the King, His Boyal 
Highness the Celestial Prince, several princes, members of 
the royal family of lower rank. General Grant and party, 
the American Consul, Mr. Sickels, and Miss Struder, 
daughter of the Consul at Singapore; Mr. Torrey, the 
American Vice-Consul, and Mrs. Torrey ; the Foreign 
Minister, his son, the King's private secretary, Mr. Ala- 
baster, the members of the Foreign Office, and the aids of 



AROUND THE WORLD. 



673 



the King who had been attending the Generah The Si- 
amese all wore state dresses — coats of gold cloth richly 
embroidered — and the King wore the family decoration, 
a star of nine points, the centre a diamond, and the other 
points with a rich jewel of different character, embracing 
the precious stones found in Siam. The General was re- 
ceived in the audience-hall, and the dinner was served in 




DANCING-WOMEN OF SIAM. 



the lower hall or dining-room. There were forty guests 
present, and the service of the table was silver, the pre- 
vailing design being the three-headed elephant, which 
belongs to the arms of Siam. This service alone cost 
£10,000 in England. There were two bands in attendance, 
one playing Siamese, the other European music, alternately. 
The Celestial Prince escorted Mrs. Grant to dinner, and 
sat opposite the King at the centre of the table. General 



674 GRANT'S TOUR 

Grant sat next the King. The dinner was long, elaborate, 
and in the European style, with the exception of some 
dishes of curry dressed in Siamese fashion, which we were 
not brave enough to do more than taste. The night was 
warm, but the room was kept moderately cool by a system 
of penekahs, or large fans, swinging from the ceiling, which 
kept the air in circulation. 

After we had been at the table about three hours, there 
was a pause and a signal. The fans stopped, the music 
paused, and Mr. Alabaster, as interpreter, took his place 
behind the King. His Majesty then arose, and the com- 
pany with him, and, in a clear accent heard all over the 
saloon, made the following speech in Siamese : — 

Your Eoyal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen now 
Assembled. — I beg you to bear the expression of the pleasure 
which I have felt in receiving as my guest a President of the 
United States of America. Siam has for many years past de- 
rived great advantages from America, whose citizens have in- 
troduced to my kingdom many arts and sciences, much medical 
knowledge, and many valuable books, to the great advantage of 
the country. Even before our countries were joined in treaty 
alliance, citizens of America came here and benefited us. Since 
then our relations have greatly improved, and to the great ad- 
vantage of Siam, and recently the improvement has been still 
more marked. Therefore it is natural that we should be ex- 
ceedingly gratified by the visit paid to us by a President of the 
United States. General Grant has a grand fame, that has reached 
even to Siam, that has been known here for several years. We 
are well aware that as a true soldier he first saw glory as a leader 
in war, and, thereafter accepting the ofl&ce of President, earned 
the admiration of all men as being a statesman of the highest 
rank. It is a great gratification to all of us to meet one thus 
eminent both in the government of war and of peace. We see 
him and are charmed by his gracious manner, and feel sure that 
his visit will inaugurate friendly relations with the United 
States of a still closer nature than before, and of the most endur- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 675 

ing cliaracter. Therefore I ask you all to join witli me in drink- 
ing the health of General Grant and wishing him every blessing. 

When the King finished, Mr. Alabaster translated the 
speecli into English, the company all the time remaining 
on their feet. Then the toast was drunk with cheers, the 
band playing the American national air. 

General Grant then arose, and in a low, but clear and 
perfectly distinct voice, said : — 

Your Majesty, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I am very 
much obliged to Your Majesty for the kind and complimentary 
manner in which you have welcomed me to Siam. I am glad 
that it has been my good fortune to visit this country, and to 
thank Your Majesty in person for your letters inviting me to 
Siam, and to see with my own eyes your country and your 
people. I feel that it would have been a misfortune if the pro- 
gramme of my journey had not included Siam, I have now 
been absent from home nearly two years, and during that time 
I have seen every capital and nearly every large city in Europe, 
as well as the principal cities in India, Burmah, and the Malay 
Peninsula. I have seen nothing that has interested me more 
than Siam, and every hour of my visit here has been agreeable 
and instructive. For the welcome I have received from Your 
Majesty, the princes and members of the Siamese government, 
and the people generally, I am very grateful. I accept it, not as 
personal to myself alone, but as a mark of the friendship felt for 
my country by Your Majesty and the people of Siam. I am 
glad to see that feeling, because I believe that the best interests 
of the two countries can be benefited by nothing as much as the 
establishment of the most cordial relations between them. On 
my return to America, I shall do what I can to cement those re- 
lations. I hope that in America we shall see more of the Siam- 
ese ; that we shall have embassies and diplomatic relations ; that 
our commerce and manufactures will increase with Siam ; and 
that your young men will visit our country and attend our col- 
leges, as they now go to colleges in Germany and England. I can 
assure them all a kind reception, and I feel that the visits would 



676 



GRANT'S TOUR 



be interesting and advantageous. I again thank Your Majesty 
for the splendid hospitality which has been shown to myself and 
my party, and 1 trust that your reign will be happy and pros- 
perous, and that Siam will continue to advance in the arts of 
civilization. 




THE QUEEN OF SIAM. 

General Grant, after a pause, then rose and said : — 

I hope you will allow me to ask you to drink the health of 
His Majesty the King of Siam. I am honored by the opportu- 
nity of proposing that toast in his own capital and his ov^^n pal- 
ace, and of saying how much I have been impressed with his 
enlightened rule. I now ask you to drink the health of His 



AROUND THE WORLD. 677 

Majesty the King, and prosperity and peace to the people of 
Siam. 

This toast was drunk with cheers, the company rising 
and the band j)laying the national air of Siam. The King 
then led the way to the upper audience-chamber, the saloon 
of the statues. Here ensued a long conversation between the 
King and the General and the various members of the 
party. Mrs. Grant, in the inner room, had a conversa- 
tion with the Queen, who had not been at table. In con- 
versing with the General, the King became warm and 
almost affectionate. He was proud of having made the 
acquaintance of the General, and he wanted to know more 
of the American people. He wished Americans to know 
that he was a friend of the country. As to the General 
himself, the King hoped when the General returned to 
the United States that he would write the King and allow 
the King to write to him, and always be his friend and 
correspondent. The General said he would always re- 
member his visit to Siam; that it would afford him 
pleasure to know that he was the friend of the King; 
that he would write to thg King and always be glad to 
hear from him, and if he ever could be of service to the 
King it would be a 23leasure. With Mr. Borie the King 
had also a long conversation, and his manner towards the 
venerable ex-Secretary was especially kind and genial. It 
was midnight before the party came to an end. 



CHAPTEE XXXV. 

EN EOUTE FOE CANTON THE EECEPTION AT THE VICE- 
REGAL PALACE A CHINESE TEA-PAETY EATING 

WITH CHOPSTICKS THE VICEROY GIVES A DINNEE TO 

GENEEAL GEANT HOW TO DINE iN CHINA CUEIOUS 

DISHES FAEEWELL TO THE VICEEOY CANTON 

THE FIVE HUNDEED DISCIPLES OF BUDDHA CANTON 

STEEETS STEEET SIGHTS THE CITY ITS HISTOEY. 

Bidding Siam farewell, the party embarked for Canton 
on board the American man-of-war Ashuelot, on the 5th 
of May. After a short and pleasant voyage they reached 
the city about ten o'clock in the evening. As they entered 
the harbor, the booming of cannon announced their arrival. 
The visitors were received by the Consular officials and 
conducted to the Viceroy's yamen, three miles from the 
point of debarkation. At least one hundred thousand 
persons witnessed the little procession, and perfect order 
prevailed on all sides. Their reception at the Viceregal 
palace is thus described: — 

The booming guns, which boom in a quick, angry fash- 
ion ; the increasing crowds, the renewed lines of soldiery, 
now standing in double line, their guns at a present ; the 
sons of mandarins, the Viceroy's guard, under trees, and 
the open, shaded enclosure into which we are borne by our 
staggering, panting chair-bearers, tell us that we are at our 
journey's end and at the palace of the Viceroy. We de- 
scend from our chairs and enter the open reception-room 
or audience-chamber. The Viceroy himself, surrounded by 
all the great officers of his court, is waiting at the door. As 
General Grant advances, accompanied by the Consul, the 

678 



AROUND THE WORLD. 679 

Viceroy steps forward and meets him with a gesture of wel- 
come, which to our barbarian eyes looks like a gesture of 
adoration. He wears the mandarin's hat and the pink 
button and flowing robes of silk, the breast and back em- 
broidered a good deal like the sacrificial robes of an arch- 
bishop at high mass. The Viceroy is a Chinaman, and not 
of the governing Tartar race. He has a thin, somewhat 
worn face, and is over fifty years of age. His manner was 
the perfection of courtesy and cordiality. He said he 
knew how unworthy he was of a visit from one so great as 
General Grant, but that this unworthiness only increased 
the honor. Then he presented the General to the members 
of his court — Chang Tsein, the Tartar General; Jen Chi, 
the Imperial Commissioner of Customs ; Shan Chang Mow, 
the Deputy Tartar General, and Chi Hwo, the Assistant 
Tartar General. After General Grant had been presented 
we were each of us in turn welcomed by the Viceroy and 
presented to his suite. Mr. Holcombe and the Chinese 
interpreter of the Consul, a blue button mandarin, who 
speaks admirable English, were our interpreters. The 
Viceroy was cordial to Mr. Borie, asking him many ques- 
tions about his journey, congratulating him upon his 
years, it being Chinese courtesy to especially salute age, 
and expressing his wonder that Mr. Borie should have 
taken so long a journey. Mr. Borie said to the Viceroy 
that he had always desired to see China. He had been for 
fifty years in business trading with China, and the result 
of that long experience had been to give him the highest 
opinion of the honesty, ability, and veracity of Chinese 
merchants. 

During this interchange of compliments, the reception- 
room was filled with members and retainers of the court. 
Mandarins, aids, soldiers — all ranks were present. The 
whole scene was one of curiosity and excitement. The 



680 GRANT'S TOUR 

Chinamen seemed anxious to do all tliey could to show us 
liow welcome was our coming, but such a visit was a new 
thing, and they had no precedent for the reception of 
strangers who had held so high a position as General Grant, 
The question of who should call first had evidently been 
much in the Viceroy's mind, for he said, apparently with 
the intention of assuaging any supposed feeling of an- 
noyance that might linger in the General's mind, that, of 
course, that was not a call, it was only the General on his 
way about the town coming in to see him. The assurance 
was certainly not necessary, and I only recall it as an illus- 
tration of the Oriental feature of our visit. After the 
civilities were exchanged, the Viceroy led the General and 
party into another room, where there were chairs and tables 
around the room in a semicircle. Between each couple of 
chairs was a small table, on which were cups of tea. The 
General was led to the place of honor in the centre, and 
the Chinese clustered together in one corner. After some 
persuasion, the Viceroy was induced to sit beside the Gen- 
eral, and the conversation proceeded. Nothing was said 
beyond the usual compliments, which were only repeated 
in various forms. I observed more vivacity among the 
Chinese than when we visited the Siamese — more of a 
desire to talk, and make the callers at home. 

After sitting fifteen minutes, we drank tea in Chinese 
fashion. The tea is served in two cups, one of which is 
placed over the other in such a manner that when you 
take up the cups you have a globe in your hands. The tea 
is plain, and as each particular cup has beelh brewed by 
itself, is, in fact, brewing while you are waiting, you have 
the leaves of the tea. You avoid the leaves by pushing 
the upper bowl down into the lower one, so as to leave a 
minute opening, and draw out the tea. Some of us drank 
the tea in orthodox home fashion, but others, being sensi-' 



AROUND THE WORLD. 681 

tive to tlie reputation of barbarism, perhaps, managed tlie 
two bowls very much as though it were an experiment in 
jugglery, and drank the tea like a mandarin. This cere- 
mony over we were led into another room that opened on 
a garden. Here were guards, aids, and mandarins, and 
lines of soldiers. We found a large table spread, covered 
with dishes — eighty dishes in all. A part of a Chinese 
reception is entertainment, and ours was to be regal. We 
sat around the table, and a cloud of attendants appeared, 
who, with silver and ivory chopsticks, heaped our plates. 
Beside each plate were two chopsticks, and a knife and 
fork, so that we might eat our food as we pleased, in Chi- 
nese or European fashion. 

The food was all sweetmeats, candied fruit, walnuts, 
almonds, ginger, cocoanuts, with cups of tea and wine. 
The Viceroy with his chopsticks helped the General. 
This is true Chinese courtesy for the host to make him- 
self the servant of his guest. Then came a service of wine 
— sweet champagne and sauterne — in which the Viceroy 
pledged us all, bowing to each guest as he drank. Then, 
again, came tea, which in China is the signal for depart- 
ure, ^n intimation that your visit is over. The Viceroy 
and party arose and led us to our chairs. Each one of us 
was severally and especially saluted as we entered our 
chairs, and as we filed off under the trees, our coolies dan- 
gling us on their shoulders, we left the Viceroy and his 
whole court, with rows of mandarins and far-extending 
lines of soldiers in an attitude of devotion, hands held 
together towards the forehead and heads bent, the soldiers 
with arms presented. The music — real, banging, gong- 
thumj)ing Chinese nmsic — broke out, twenty-one guns were 
fired, so close to us that the smoke obscured the view, and 
we plunged into the sea of life through which we had 
floated, and back again, through one of the most wonder- 



682 GRANT'S TOUR 

ful sisfhts I have ever seen, back to our shadv home in the 
American Consulate. 

On the following day the Viceroy gave a dinner in honor 
of General Grant. Our correspondent describes it as fol- 
lows : — The hour fixed by the Viceroy for the dinner was 
six, and it was necessary for us to be under way at five. 
Those who went to the dinner were General Grant and 
j)arty, Commodore Perkins, Engineer McEwin, Lieutenant 
Deering, Dr. Fitzsimons, and A. Ludlow Case, of the Ash- 
uelot. Our journey to the Viceroy was in the same state 
as when we made our official call. The hour was later, 
and it was more pleasant to ride in the cool evening than 
in the warm, sweltering day. Although the crowd was 
immense, it w^s not so large as on the day before. There 
were the same ceremonies, the same parade, the same firing 
of guns, and if anything even more splendor when we 
came to the viceregal mansion. The Viceroy, the Tartar 
General and their splendidly embroidered retinues were all 
in waiting, and we were shown into the audience-chamber 
and given tea. The hall was illuminated and the gardens 
were dazzling with light. After the tea and the exchange 
of compliments between the Chinese and the members of 
our party, a signal was given by the ringing of silver 
chimes, and we marched in procession to the dining-hall. 

It was something of a march, because in these Oriental 
palaces space is well considered, and if you dine in one 
house you sleep in another and bathe in a third. The 
dining-room was open on the gardens, apparently open on 
three sides. Around the open sides was a wall of servants, 
attendants, soldiers, mandarins, and if you looked beyond 
into the gardens, under the corruscating foliage, burdened 
with variegated lanterns, you saw groups and lines, all star- 
ing in upon us. 

I had always heard of a Chinese dinner as among the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 683 

eccentric features of their civilization. Our table was a 
series of tables, forming three sides of a square. The sides 
of the tables that formed the interior of the square were 
not occupied. Here the servants moved about. At each 
table were six persons, with the exception of the principal 
table, which was given up to General Grant, the Viceroy, 
the Tartar General, Mr. Borie, and Mr. Holcombe. Be- 
hind the Viceroy stood his interpreter and other personal 
servants. Attendants stood over the other tables with lar2;e 
peacock fans, which was a comfort, the night was so warm. 
The dinner was entirely Chinese, with the exception of the 
knives, forks, and glasses. But in addition to the knives 
and forks we had chopsticks, with which some of the party 
made interesting experiments in the way of searching out 
ragout and soup dishes. At each of the tables were one or 
two of our Chinese friends, and we were especially fortu- 
nate at having with us a Chinese officer who spoke English 
well, having learned it at the mission-school of Dr. Hopper. 
The custom in China is not to give you a bill of fare 
over which you can meditate, and if the dinner has any 
resources whatever, compose a minor dinner of your own. 
A servant comes to each table and lays down a slip of red 
tea-box paper inscribed with Chinese characters. This is 
the name of the dish. Each table was covered with dishes, 
which remained there during the dinner — dishes of every- 
thing except bread — sweetmeats and cakes predominating. 
The courses are brought in bowls and set down in the 
middle of the table. Your Chinese friend, whose j^olite- 
ness is unvarying, always helps you before he helps him- 
self. He dives his two chopsticks into the smoking bowl 
and lugs out a savory morsel and drops it on your plate. 
Then he helps himself frequently, not troubling the plate, 
but eating directly from the bowl. If the dish is a dainty 
shark's fins or bird's-nest soup, all the Chinese go to work 



684 • GRANT'S TOUR 

at the same bowl and with the same chopsticks, silver and 
ivory, which were not changed during the entire dinner, 
but did service for fish and fowl and sweetmeats. Between 
each course were cigars or pipes. The high Chinamen had 
pipe-bearers with them, and as each course was ended they 
would take a whiff. But the cigars came as a relief to the 
smoking members of the party ; for they could sit and look 
on and enjoy the spectacle, and have, the opera sensation 
of looking at something new and strange. The cigars, too, 
were an excuse for not eating, and at a Chinese dinner an 
excuse for not eating is welcome. There is no reason in 
the world why you should not eat a Chinese dinner, ex- 
cept that you are not accustomed to it. 

The one thing which gave the dinner a touch of poetry 
was the bird's-nest soup. The fact that the Chinese have 
found a soup in the nest of a bird is one of the achieve- 
ments of their civilization. So when our Chinese General 
told us, as he read the cabalistic letters on red tea-chest 
pa23er, that the next dish was to be bird's-nest soup, we 
awakened to it as to the realization of a new mystery. One 
of the disadvantages of getting on in life is that you have 
fewer and fewer sensations, that you know everything, that 
there is no awful, joyous, rapturous mystery to be made 
known. Life becomes recollections, and things are not in 
themselves good, but only better or worse than the same 
things as you have seen them before. But bird's-nest soup 
was new — none of us had ever seen it ; and to come to 
China without eating bird's-nest soup would be like going 
to Philadelphia without eating terrapin — a wanton, per- 
fidious trifling with the compensations of life. The birds'- 
nests came from Java, Borneo, and Sumatra, and are rare 
and dear. My China friend told me that the dish before 
us would cost $15 or $20 ; that the bird's-nest prepared 
for soup was worth its weight in silver. I was glad to 



AROUND THE WORLD. 685 

know this, because I had been under the impression that 
the Americans Avere the only people who turned silver into 
their food, and it was a consolation to know that the oldest 
civilization in the world is as extravagant as the youngest. 
The nests are built in, and are the work of a species of 
swallow. When the bowl came on the table, it was as 
thick as a ragout, and our Chinese friends lugged out a 
mess of stringy, jSbrous food, about the color and consist- 
ency of good, old-fashioned vermicelli. The soup certainly 
does not justify its fame. There was nothing disagreeable 
about it; it was simply tasteless. I could not detect a 
flavor or the suspicion of a flavor ; it was only a mess of 
not unpleasant, glutinous food that needed seasoning. I can 
imagine how a French cook could take a bird's-nest soup 
and so arrange it that an epicure would relish it ; but he 
might do the same with turnips or asparagus, without pay- 
ing their weight in silver. 

After we had learned the bird's-nest soup, and had, 
alas ! one mystery less to know in this developing world, 
we were attracted by shark's fins. The fins of the shark 
are much prized in China, and there were several stewed. 
We only skirmished around this dish in a coy, inquiring 
manner, really not caring to go into it, but feeling that it 
would be an impropriety to come to a Chinese dinner and 
not taste shark's fins. What would folks at home say 
about us ? In this spirit —^ a spirit of duty ; of doing 
something that had to be done — that was, among other 
reasons, why we were ten thousand miles from home, on 
our way around the world — we went through our Chinese 
dinner. The dishes that we knew were so disguised that 
even when they made themselves known they were be- 
yond recognition. The dishes we did not know we experi- 
mented upon. We discovered that the bird's-nest soup 
was insipid ; that shark's fins were oily and rancid ; that 



686 GRANT'S TOUR 

fish-brain was too rich ; that the preparations of whale 
sinews and bamboo and fish maw, mushrooms, and a whole 
family of the fungus species were repelling ; that the chip- 
ping of the ham and duck and pigeon into a kind of hash 
took away all the qualities that inspire respect for them at 
home ; and that the fatal omission was bread. " If you go 
to a Chinese dinner," said a friend on shipboard, " be sure 
and take a loaf of bread in your pocket." I thought of 
this injunction as I was preparing to dine with the Vice- 
roy, but had not the courage to go into a Chinese palace, 
like Benjamin Franklin, with a loaf of bread under my 
arm. If we had been dining, we should have missed the 
bread ; but none of us went through the dinner, except the 
Doctor, perhaps, who viewed the entertainment from a pro- 
fessional point of view, and went through it. in a spirit of 
discovery. When the feast was about two-thirds over, the 
Viceroy, seeing that General Grant and Mr. Borie had 
gone beyond the possibility of dinner, proposed a walk in 
the garden. The remainder of the party waited until the 
dinner was over. It was a long and weary repast, once 
that the novelty passed away. 

It was about half-past ten when we returned to the 
audience-room and took leave of our hosts. The Viceroy 
said he would come down to the Ashuelot and see the Gen- 
eral off. But the General said he was to sail at an early 
hour, and so said that he would prefer not putting His 
Excellency to so great a trouble. Then the Viceroy said 
i L was a custom in China to send some memento of friend- 
ship to friends ; that he was sorry he could not, without 
violation of Chinese etiquette, entertain Mrs. Grant, and 
he would like to send her a specimen of Cantonese work, 
which mio-ht serve to remind her of Canton when she came 
to her own home beyond the seas. The Viceroy also spoke 
of the pleasure and the honor that he had felt in receiving 



AROUND THE WORLD. 687 

General Grant, and his welcome in Canton would be re- 
peated throughout China. In taking leave, the Viceroy 
asked the General to be kind to his people in the United 
States, " for you have," he said, " a hundred thousand Can- 
tonese among you, and they are good people." Then we 
entered our chairs, and amid the firing of guns, music, the 
cries of attendants, and the waving of lanterns, we returned. 
The journey home through the night was weird and strange. 
The party was preceded by torch-bearers, and every chair 
carried lanterns. At regular points on the route were at- 
tendants holding torches and lanterns. The streets swung 
with lanterns, and the effect, the light, the narrow streets, 
the variety of decoration, the blended and varying colors, 
the doors massed with people, the dense and silent throng 
through which we passed, their yellow features made som- 
bre by the night — everything was new and strange and 
grotesque ; and when we crossed the river and came under 
the green trees and saw our boat in the river and felt our- 
selves again among our own ways, it seemed that in the 
scenes through which we had passed, the curtain had been 
lifted from a thousand years, and that we had been at 
some medigeval feast of Oriental and barbaric splendor. 

Canton and its sights are described : — One notable 
sight was the Hall of the Five Hundred Disciples of 
Buddha. The street boys, divining our intention, ran 
ahead, and after some knocking, the gate was opened, 
and we entered under a covered way into a penstyle, at- 
tendants and priests personally giving us welcome. We 
passed through granite cloisters, and into the hall where 
there are 504 statues of clay, gilded, to the memory of cer- 
tain disciples of the Lord Buddha, famous in the religious 
history of China. There are images of Buddha, or rather 
of three Buddhas ; one of the Emperor Kienlung, a highly 
beloved monarch, whose image sits on the dragon throne. 



688 GRANT'S TOUR 

The other statues are of the Buddhist disciiDles, whose names 
are given, each statue being as distinct from the others as 
the Apostle Peter from the Apostle Paul in Catholic relig- 
ious decoration. Each of the figures has a S23ecial place in 
the affections of worshippers. Before some of them we 
noticed people in adoration or meditation or prayer. Be- 
fore others we noticed gifts placed in propitiation or en- 
treaty, after the fashion of Buddhist devotion. There was 
nothing striking in these statues except their individuality. 
Each was a type, a portrait, the representation of some 
human type that had been in the artist's eye. I could 
understand how there could be a whole literature of the- 
ology based on images so diversified and peculiar, if one 
could only enter into the legends of the Chinese faith. 
Some of the statues were merry and laughing ; others were 
in tears. Some showed by their apparel wealth and high 
station ; others were in rags, like mendicant friars. Some 
wore shoes, but the majority were shoeless. They were 
said, as disciples of Buddha, to have had various supernatu- 
ral gifts — the power of subduing beasts, destroying rep- 
tiles, and, like the apostles in the Scriptures, the power of 
being able to speak in strange tongues without any previ- 
ous application. In this they resembled St. Francis Xavier, 
whose footsteps we crossed in India and Malacca, and who 
was blessed with this unique and convenient jDOwer. The 
worship of these Five Hundred Disciples is encouraged, 
says Archdeacon Gray, because it is in their power not 
only to bestow long life on all who do worship them, but 
to dispel all vexation, and bring to the devotee peace and joy. 
The streets in Canton are very narrow and very dirty. 
The average width is from three to five feet. On the occa- 
sion of our visit they had been cleaned up, but they were, 
even with the cleaning, in a condition that would gratify 
a New York Tammany Alderman in the days of the em- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 689 

pire of Tweed. They are paved with long, narrow slabs 
of stone, with no sidewalks. Every house that we passed 
on our way was a bazaar, and consisted of one open door, 
that led into a spacious room. In some of these there were 
Sjsiral stairways that led to storerooms or dwelling cham- 
bers. We found some idea of the wealth of Canton, and 
of the wants of the country which it supplies, when we 
remembered how vast a trade these bazaars represented. 
In looking over a plan of the city I had been struck with 
the names of the streets, the poetical and devotional spirit 
they expressed. There was no glorification of mere human 
kings, and you could almost fancy that you were reading 
of some allegorical city, like what Bunyan saw in his 
dream. There was Peace street, and the street of Benev- 
olence and Love. Another, by some violent wrench of 
the imagination, was the street of Befreshing Breezes. 
Some contented mind had given a name to the street of 
Early Bestowed Blessings. The paternal sentiment, so 
sacred to the Chinamen, found expression in the street of 
One Hundred Grandsons, and the street of One Thousand 
Grandsons. There was the street of a Thousand Beati- 
tudes, which, let us pray, were enjoyed by its founder. 
There were streets consecrated to Everlasting Love, to a 
Thousand-fold Peace, to Ninefold Brightness, to Accumu- 
lated Blessings, while a practical soul, who knew the value 
of advertising, named his avenue the Market of Golden 
Profits. Chinese mythology gave the names of the As- 
cending Dragons, the Saluting Dragon, and the Beposing 
Dragon. Other streets are named after trades and avoca- 
tions, and it is noticeable that in Canton, as in modern 
towns, the workers in various callings cluster together. 
There is Betel-nut street, where you can buy the betel-nut, 
of which we saw so much in Siam, and the cocoanut, and 
drink tea. There is where the Chinese hats are sold, and 



690 . GRANT'S TOUR 

where you can buy the finery of a mandarin for a dollar 
or two. There is Eyeglass street, where the compass is 
sold, and if you choose to buy a compass, there is no harm 
in remembering that we owe the invention of that, subtle 
instrument to China. Another street is given to the manu- 
facture of bows and arrows, another to Prussian blue, a 
third to the preparation of furs. The stores have signs in 
Chinese characters, gold letters on a red or black ground, 
which are hung in front, a foot or two from the wall, and 
droop before you as you pass under them, producing a pe- 
culiar effect, as of an excess of ornamentation, like Paris 
on a fete day. The habit to which you are accustomed in 
Paris of giving the store a fanciful or poetic name prevails 
in Canton. One merchant calls his house "Honest Gains." 
Another, more ambitious, names his house " Great Gains." 
One satisfied soul proclaims his store to be a " Never End- 
ing Success," while his neighbor's is "Ten Thousand Times 
Successful." There is the store called " Ever Enduring," 
and others adopt a spirit not common in trade by speaking 
of their shops as "Heavenly Happiness" and "By Heaven 
Made Prosperous." Others more practical signify by some 
image the nature of their trade, and over their stores you 
see representations of a shoe, a fan, a hat, a boot, a collar, 
and a pair of spectacles. 

We wandered about among the shops, strolling in and 
out, as though our interest was proprietary, always followed 
by the crowd. We looked at the temple in honor of vir- 
tuous women, but woman does not hold a position in China 
high enough for us to feel an interest in monuments to her 
virtue. Virtue in woman is conimended very much as we 
commend speed in a horse, not because it ennobles and sanc- 
tifies womanhood, but because it adds to her value as a 
part of her husband's possessions. We stopped and looked 
at some workmen blowing glass. A glass vase in a rough 



AROUND THE WORLD. 691 

state about six feet high was in the hands of the artificer, 
and although the pat of an infant would have ruined its 
beauty, the workman handled it as surely as though it had 
been iron. The manufacture of glass is an important in- 
dustry in Canton. But we found our greatest pleasure in 
looking at the porcelain and ceramic ware, infinite in vari- 
ety and beautiful, at the carved ivory and hard wood. 
Canton excels in this and in cra|)e and silk. Some of the 
shawls and scarfs were masterpieces of texture, and espe- 
cially some which had been painted and embroidered. We 
looked at men beating gold-leaf, and threading our way 
into narrow streets and out-of-the-way places found our- 
selves among the weavers of silk. The rooms in which 
the silk-looms were in operation were small and dark. We 
noticed cotton-weavers who were at work in the open air. 
The looms were primitive, and seemed to have been built 
for affording employment to the largest number of laborers. 
What Chinese labor will not stand is cheap American 
labor-saving machinery ; and although attempts have been 
made to introduce it, which would enable the workman to 
treble the quantity of his work and the farmer to hull and 
clean ten times the quantity of rice, the feeling is so strong 
among laborers as to forbid it. Laborers here, no matter 
in what calling, belong to guilds or trade-unions, and any 
attempt to enforce a new machine or a labor-saving method 
of labor is resisted. All the capital in the world could not 
induce the silk-weavers to introduce the Jacquard loom. 
What would then become of the nimble-fingered lad whose 
business it is to pull the strings and arrange the warp be- 
fore the weaver propels the shuttle? Even more inter- 
esting was the time we gave to artists in lacquer work. 
Lacquer work is so beautiful when finished, and in peace 
and glory at last on my lady's toilet-table, that it is not 
well to inquire too curiously "into the process of its manu- 



692 GRANT'S TOUR 

facture. Our artist friend sat over the finished work with 
his needle and brush and his chalk-powder. The powder 
enables him to shadow forth the design, which he j^aints in 
vermilion. Over this vermilion dust is rubbed very much 
as gold and silver and bronze printing is done at home, 
and the picture comes out at length in silver or gold. Lac- 
quer work requires a trained hand, and as you saw the 
patience and skill bestowed upon his work by the artist 
and knew what a trifle it would bring when sold, it was 
disheartening. But the first thing you learn in China — 
and the lesson is always present and always coming before 
you in a new shape — is the cheapness of human labor and 
the profusion of human life. 

Canton, next to Pekin, the most celebrated of Chinese 
cities, the one at least best known to foreigners, goes back 
to the fourth century before Christ, and is among the most 
ancient cities of the world. It was supposed to have been 
a muddy stockade surrounded with bamboo defences. It 
was called the city of rams, and Archdeacon Gray, whose 
book on Canton is valuable, gives a fairy legend as the 
origin of this appellation. " Five genii, clothed with gar- 
ments of five different colors, met at the capital. Each of 
the rams bore in his mouth a stalk of grain having six ears, 
and presented them to the people of the district, to whom 
the genii thus spake : — ' May famine never visit your 
markets.' Having uttered these words, the genii disap- 
peared, and the rams were turned into stone." So from 
that day Canton has been known as the city of the five 
rams or the five genii, and the five stone rams may still be 
seen by those who care to verify the legend. The good 
wish of the genii has not always been respected, for Canton 
has known famine and pestilence and war, and has had at 
times an excejDtional run of ill-luck. The story of one war 
goes back to the second century before Christ, when the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 693 

people, being in rebellion, defeated the imperial forces, and 
blood ran for miles. In the sixth century after the coming 
of our Lord there was a martial emj^eror whom the peojDle 
sought to propitiate by sending a piece of fine cloth. In 
those days, as in the present, there were nimble fingers in 
Canton who knew how to make cloth as light and free as 
down. But the Emperor thought the fine cloth an evidence 
of effeminacy and weakness, and he forbade the manufac- 
ture of it. In the early days there was a great trade be- 
tween India and China, Canton being the gateway through 
which most of the commerce passed. I presume that it 
was through Canton that the Buddhist missionaries passed 
when they came from the holy city of Benares to spread 
the subtle faith of the Lord Buddha. More than a thou- 
sand years ago the merchants of Canton had ventures on 
land and sea. But wild and savage princes came to the 
throne, and we read of wars and devastation and cruelty, 
which it is not useful to repeat. We are reminded too 
vividly of our modern civilization. But a king came some 
nine centuries since whose reign was marked with good 
omens, " all the stars flowing to the North," and with this 
jDrince came peace and tranquillity. Under him and his 
successors witches and wizards were supjoressed, expensive 
ornaments were forbidden ; it was not allowed to sacrifice 
men to propitiate demons, and wars for the annexation of 
territory, against Cochin China esi^ecially, were stopped. 
In the sixteenth century Portugal put her foot on Chinese 
territory. It was during that bright and evanescent period 
of Portuguese glory, when it seemed as if the genius of 
Albuquerque and the faith of Xavier would establish Por- 
tugal as master of Asia. In these days the Ming dynasty 
reigned, and the patriotic Chinaman will tell you, with a 
sigh, that the Ming days were the golden days of the Em- 
pire. Among the first ports opened to Eurojoean trade as 
a result of the pressure of the Portuguese was Canton. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A VISIT TO MACAO THE GEOTTO OF CAMOENS THE 

AUTHOR OF "LUSIAD" HONG KONG ADDEESS OF 

WELCOME A STRANGE CEREMONY VISIT TO SWATOW 

HOSPITALITIES OF THE ISLAND AMOY SHANGHAI 

A HEARTY WELCOME PROCESSION TO THE CON- 
SULATE THE CITY EN FETE A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 

TIENTSIN THE VICEROY HIS ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

THE general's RESPONSE A FETE-CHAMPETEE. 

During the sojourn of the travellers in China, a visit 
was paid to Macao, Swatow, and Amoy. The correspond- 
ent of the New York Herald writes : — We sailed down the 
river from Canton on the morning of the 9th and over to 
Macao. Macao is a peninsula on the east coast of China, 
within five hours' sail of Hong Kong, a distance of about 
forty miles. The town looks picturesque as you come to it 
from the sea, with that aspect of faded grandeur which 
adds to the beauty, if not to the interest and value, of a 
city. As the Ashuelot came around the point in view of 
Macao, a slight sea was rolling and a mist hung over the 
hills. As soon as our ship was made out from the shore 
the Portuguese battery flashed out a salute of twenty-one 
guns, to which the Ashuelot responded. About five o'clock 
we came to an anchor, and the aid of the Governor came 
on board to say that the illness, and we were sorry to hear, 
the serious illness of the Governor prevented his doing any 
more than sending the most cordial welcome to Macao. 
The General landed and drove to a hotel. In the evening 
he strolled about, and in the morning visited the one sight 

694 



, AROUND THE WORLD. 695 

wliicli gives Macao a world-wide fame — the liome and 
grotto of Camoens, 

Camoens lived in the age when it was not unbecoming 
for a poet to be a soldier, and to engage in adventurous 
enterprises. He lost his sight in a conflict with the Moors, 
and, dissatisfied with the condition of his affairs in Port- 
ugal, sailed for the East in the thirty-sixth year of his age. 
In the Portuguese colony of Goa he made enemies by the 
freedom with which he criticised the rulers, and the result 
was that he came in banishment to Macao, where in time 
local friendship jDrocured him the appointment of admin- 
istrator to the estates of deceased persons. Here he wrote 
a good part of the " Lusiad." Senhor Marques, a Portu- 
guese resident, is now the owner of what is now known 
as Camoens' Grotto. General Grant visited it the morn- 
ing after his arrival, and was shown over the grounds by 
Senhor Marques, who, in honor of our coming, had built an 
arch over the entrance with the inscription — " Welcome 
to General Grant." The grounds surrounding the grotto 
are beautiful and extensive, and for some time we walked 
past bamboo, the pimento, the coffee, and other tropical 
trees and plants. Then we ascended to a bluff overlooking 
the town and sea, and from the point we had a command- 
ing view of the town, the ocean, and the rocky coasts of 
China. The grotto of Camoens is enclosed with an iron 
railing, and a bust of the poet surmounts the sjDot where, 
according to tradition, he was wont to sit and muse and 
compose his immortal poems. General Grant inscribed his 
name in the visitors' book, and, accompanied by Senhor 
Marques, returned to the Ashuelot, which at once steamed 
for Hong Kong. Salutes were fired from the Portuguese 
battery as we left, and at two o'clock we landed in Hong 
Kong harbor, where Governor Hennessy met the General 
and took him to the Government House. 



696 GRANT'S TOUR 

Our visit to Hong Kong at this time was to be present 
at a garden-party which had been arranged by the citizens ; 
but the weather interfered, and the General was compelled 
to leave on Monday, to keejD engagements which had been 
made for him in the north. While in Hong Kong, we 
witnessed a strange ceremony. It was strange to us, al- 
though so common here. It was the sending of written 
prayers to heaven by burning them. He spent Sunday 
quietly with the Governor, and on Monday morning took 
leave of his brilliant and hospitable host. Before leaving, 
the General, accompanied by the Governor and our Con- 
sul, Colonel John S. Moseby, received a deputation of Chi- 
nese who wished to present him with an address. The 
presentation took place in the parlors of the Government 
House. General Grant made a very pleasing response to 
the address, in which he thanked them for their kindness, 
and expressed the wish that harmony might continue be- 
tween their country and his own. 

After giving the address, the General and party, ac- 
companied by Governor Hennessy and wife and Colonel 
Moseby, took chairs and proceeded to the landing to embark 
for the north. There was a guard of honor at the wharf, 
and all the foreign residents were present. As the General 
went on board the launch, hearty cheers were given, which 
were again and again repeated as he steamed into the bay. 
The Governor took his leave of General Grant on board 
the Ashuelot, and as he left the vessel fired a salute of 
seventeen guns in his honor, with the British flag at the 
fore. 

General Grant's trip along the coast of China was ex- 
cej)tionally pleasant, so far as winds and waves were con- 
cerned. There was a monsoon blowing, but it was just, 
enough to help us along without disturbing the sea„ On 
the morning of the 13th we came to Swatow. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 699 

Swatow is one of the treaty ports thrown open to for- 
eigners under the treaty of Lord Elgin. It is at the mouth 
of the river Hau, near the border of the Kwangtung Prov- 
ince, in latitude 23 deg. 20 min. north, longitude 116 deg. 
39 min. east. The entrance to the river is striking in 
point of scenery, and as we came in sight of the town, all 
the Chinese forts saluted, and the shipping in the harbor 
dressed. C. C. Williams, our Consular Agent, came on 
board to welcome the General, and in his company we 
landed and spent an hour in threading the old Chinese 
town. The streets were narrow, and our way was ren- 
dered more difficult by a company or two of strolling 
players, who had erected a kind of Punch and Judy show. 
The apparition of the foreigner, however, injured the show 
business, for the audience gave up the music and merry- 
making and followed us over the town. We saw nothing 
in Swatow, except that it was very dirty, and it was a re- 
lief to steam across the river to the house of Mr. Williams, 
where there was a sumptuous luncheon. In the afternoon 
we bade farewell to our hosts, and steamed out, amid sev- 
eral salutes from the forts, to Amoy. While in Swatow, 
the Chinese Governor called in state, and said that he had 
orders from the government to pay all possible attentions 
to General Grant. It was the custom of the country, in 
making these calls, to bring an offering ; and as nothing 
is more useful than food, he had brought a live sheep, six 
live chickens, six ducks, and four hams. While the Gov- 
ernor was in conference with the General, the animals were 
outside. There was nothing for the General to do but to 
accept the homely offering and present it to the servants. 

Amoy is another of the treaty ports open to foreign 
trade. It is on \h& Island of Heamun, at the mouth of 
Dragon River, in latitude 24 deg. 40 min. north, longitude 
118 deg. east. It was one of the ports visited by the Por- 



700 GRANT'S TOUR 

tuguese, and lias practically been open to trade for three 
centuries. The island is about forty miles in circumference, 
and the scenery as we approached was picturesque. All 
the batteries fired, and there was a welcome from one of 
our own men-of-war, the Hanger, commanded by Com- 
mander Boyd. N. C. Stevens, the Vice-Consul, came on 
board and welcomed us to Amoy. We landed and strolled 
through the Chinese town, which was very old and dirty. 
At noon there was a large luncheon-party, at which we 
met all the Consuls, the leading citizens, and the com- 
manders of the Ashuelot and the Ranger. Among the 
guests was Sir Thomas Wade, the British Minister to 
Pekin, who was on his way to the capital, and with whom 
the General had a long conversation about China. Mr. 
Stevens proposed the health of the General in a compli- 
mentary speech, and at five we went on board the Ranger 
to attend a reception. You can never tell what can be 
done with a man-of-war in the way of flags and lanterns 
and greenery. Certainly the Ranger, under the inspira- 
tion of the officers, was transformed into a fairy scene, and 
nothing could have been more kind and hospitable than 
the captain and the officers. Mrs. Boyd assisted her hus- 
band in entertaining his guests. At seven o'clock, as the 
sun was going down, we took our leave of the brilliant 
gathering in the Ranger and steamed to Shanghai. 

On the morning of the 17th the Ashuelot, commanded 
by Commander Johnson, who relieved Commander Per- 
kins in Hong Kong, came in sight of the Woosung forts, 
which fired twenty-one guns. We had had a pleasant run 
from Amoy, a stiff breeze helping us along. As soon as 
the firing of the Chinese forts ceased, the batteries of the 
Iron Duke, the flagship of the Admiral commanding the 
British fleet in China, ran up the American flag to the 
fore and fired twenty-one guns. The Chinese gun-boats 



AROUND THE WORLD. 703 

joined in the chorus, and the Ashuelot returned the salutes. 
There was so much cannonading and so much smoke, that 
it seemed as if a naval battle were raging. As the smoke 
lifted, the American man-of-war Monocacy was seen steam- 
ing towards us, dressed from stem to stern. As she ap- 
proached a salute was fired. We were a little ahead of 
the time appointed for our reception in Shanghai, and 
when the Monocacy came within a cable length both 
vessels came to an anchor. A boat came from the Monoc- 
acy, carrying the committee of citizens who were to meet 
the General— Messrs. E. W. Little, F. B. Forbes, Helland, 
Purden, and Hiibbe. The committee was accomjDanied by 
Mr. D. W. Bailey, the American Consul-General for 
China, who presented the members to General Grant, and 
by Mrs. Little and Mrs. Holcombe, who came to meet Mrs. 
Grant. The committee lunched with the General, and 
about half-past one the Ashuelot slowly steamed up to the 
city. As we came in sight of the shipping the sight was 
very beautiful. The different men-of-war all fired salutes 
and manned yards, the merchantmen at anchor were 
dressed, and as the Ashuelot passed the crews cheered. 
The General stood on the quarter-deck and bowed his 
thanks. As we came to the spot selected for landing, the 
banks of the river were thronged with Chinamen. It is 
estimated that at least one hundred thousand lined the 
banks, but figures are, after all, guesses, and fail to give 
you an idea of the vast, far-extending, patient, and silent 
multitude. It was Saturday afternoon, the holiday, and 
consequently every one could come, and every one did in 
holiday attire. One of the committee said to me, as we 
stood on the deck of the Ashuelot looking out upon the 
wonderful panorama of life and movement, that he sup- 
posed that every man, woman, and child in Shanghai wlio 
could come was on the river-bank. The landing was in 



704 GRANT'S TOUR 

the French concession. A large "go down," or storehouse, 
had been decorated with flags, flowers, and greenery. This 
building was large enough to hold all the foreign residents 
in Shanghai, and long before the hour of landing every 
seat was occuj)ied. 

At three o'clock precisely the barge of the Ashuelot 
was manned, the American flag was hoisted at the bow, 
and General Grant, accompanied by Mrs. Grant, Mr. Borie, 
Colonel Grant, Mr. Holcombe, acting Minister at Pekin ; 
Mrs. Holcombe, Consul-General Bailey, and Dr. Keating, 
embarked. As the boat slowly pulled towards the shore, 
the guns of the Ashuelot thundered out a national salute, 
while the other men-of-war manned the yards. In a few 
minutes the boat came to the landing, which was covered 
with scarlet cloth. Mr. Little, chairman of the Municipal 
Council, and the committee shook hands with the General, 
and the procession marched into the building. As General 
Grant entered, the audience rose and cheered heartily. On 
reaching the seats jDrepared for him, he was presented to 
the Chinese Governor, who had come to do his part in the 
reception. The Governor was accompanied by a delega- 
tion of mandarins of high rank. The band played " Hail 
Columbia ! " and after the music and cheering ceased, Mr. 
Little advanced and read the address of the committee. 

After a moment's pause. General Grant, sj^eaking in a 
low, conversational tone of voice, thanked them for their 
kind welcome. 

The speech over there were other presentations, and 
General Grant was escorted to his carriage. There was a 
guard of honor composed of sailors and marines from the 
American and French men-of-war and the Volunteer Kifles 
of Shanghai. It was the intention of the British naval 
commander to have sent a hundred men on shore to take 
part in the reception, but there was some misunderstanding 




SENDING WRITTEN PRAYERS TO HEAVEN BY BURNING TIIKJr. 



AROUND THE WORLD. lO^J 

as to the time, and the British tars did not land until it 
was too late. The Captain was mortified at the blunder, 
and sent a message to the General to explain his absence 
and his regret that he had not been able to do his part 
in honoring the General. The General rode in a carriage 
with Mrs. Grant, Mr. Bailey, and Mr. Holcombe. The 
volunteers formed on either side, and walked as a guard 
of honor. There was an infantry battalion, and a battery 
of artillery. Horses are not plentiful in Shanghai, and 
the General's carriage was drawn by a j^air of Australian 
horses. The animals, however, did not have military ex- 
perience, and grew so impatient with the guns, the music, 
and the cheering, that they became unmanageable, and the 
procession came to a halt. Lieutenant Cowles, of the Mo- 
nocacy, who was in command of the escort, suggested a 
remedy. The horses were taken out, and the volunteer 
guard, taking hold of the carriage, drew it along the em- 
bankment to the consulate, a distance of more than a mile. 
On arriving at the consulate, the General reviewed the es- 
cort. The evening was spent quietly, the General dining 
with Mr. Bailey and a few of the leading citizens of the 
settlement. 

Sunday was passed quietly, General Grant attending 
service in the Cathedral. On Monday morning he visited 
a dairy farm, and afterwards made a few calls. In the 
evening he dined with B. W. Little, and after dinner went 
to the house of Mr. Cameron, the manager of the Plong 
Kong and Shanghai Bank, to visit the torchlight j)roces- 
sion and the illumination. The whole town had been agog 
all day preparing for the illumination, and as we strolled 
along the parade, every house was in the hands of work- 
men and Chinese artists. The tea-gardens were especially 
attractive. There was a threat of bad weather, but as the 
sun went down the ominous winds went with it, and the 



708 GRANT'S TOUR 

evening was perfect for all the purposes of the display. 
The two occasions when Shanghai had exerted herself to 
welcome and honor a guest, were on the visits of the Duke 
of Edinburgh and the Grand Duke Alexis. The display 
in honor of General Grant far surpassed these, and what 
made it so agreeable was the heartiness with which Eng- 
lish, Americans, French, Germans, and Chinese all united. 
I had heard a good deal during the day of what Shanghai 
would do. But with the memory of many fetes in many 
lands, fresh from the stujDendous demonstration in Canton, 
I felt sceptical as to what a little European colony clinging 
to the fringe of the Chinese Empire could really do in the 
way of a display. The dinner at Mr. Little's was over at 
half-past nine, and in company with Mr. Little and the 
General I drove along the whole river front. The scene 
as we drove out into the open street was bewildering in its 
beauty. Wherever you looked was a blaze of light and 
fire, of rockets careering in the air, of Koman lights, and 
ev^ry variety of fire. The ships in the harbor were a blaze 
of color, and looked as if they were pieces of fireworks. 
The lines of the masts, the rigging, and the hulls were 
traced in flames. The Monocacy was very beautiful, every 
line from the bow to the topmast and anchor-chain hung 
with Japanese lanterns. This graceful, blending mass of 
color thrown upon the black evening sky was majestic, and 
gave you an idea of a beauty in fire hitherto unknown to 
us. " Never before," says the morning journal — for I 
prefer to take other authority than my own in recording 
this dazzling scene — " never before has there been such a 
blaze of gas and candles seen in Shanghai." 

The trees in full foliage gave a richer hue to the scenes, 
and they seemed, under the softening influence of the night 
and the fire, to be a part of the fireworks. On the front 
of the club-house was a ten-feet star in gas-jets, with the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 709 

word " Welcome." There was the United States coat of 
arms, with the initials " U. S. G.," flanked with the words 
"Soldier" and "Statesman." Russell & Co. had a ten- 
feet star, " Welcome to Grant," and in addition there were 
2,000 Chinese lanterns crossing the whole building, light- 
ing the grounds, and swinging from the flagstaff. At the 
Central Hotel was a six-feet St. George's star, with " U. S. 
G." At the French a St. George's star, with a sunburst 
on either side. The American consulate was covered with 
lanterns arranged to form sentences — " Washington, Lin- 
coln, Grant — three immortal Americans ; " " Grant will 
win on this line if it takes all summer ; " " The fame of 
Grant encircles the world ; " " Grant — of the people, with 
the people, for the people." There was also a mammoth 
device in gas-jets, fifty feet high, "Welcome, Grant — 
soldier, hero, statesman." The Japanese consulate, their 
merchant, and the offices of the shipping company were 
covered with lanterns, four thousand arranged in the most 
effective manner. The Astor House had this quotation 
from the General's speech in Hong Kong, " The perpetual 
alliance of the two great English-speaking nations of the 
world." The English consulate had a multitude of lanterns, 
and the word " Welcome " in a blazing gas-jet. The Ma- 
sonic Hall was a mass of light. Jardine, Matheson & Co. 
had lanterns arranged in a St. Andrew's cross, and a tri- 
umphal arch of fire. Mere details give no idea of the 
scene. Even more striking than the decorations was the 
multitude. The Chinese like a celebration, and all day the 
people had been pburing into the foreign settlement from 
the old city, and from the country for miles around, to see 
the show. Here I am at a loss for figures, but the Gen- 
eral's own estimate is perhaps the best. In answer to a 
question he said that there were" no less than 200 persons 
within the range of vision. As we drove slowly along the 



710 GRANT'S TOUR 

river front, wherever the eye rested it was upon a massed, 
silent, and immovable throng, not like our own rolling, im- 
patient, heedless crowds at home, but silent, sober, calm. 
At ten the General returned to the house of Mr. Cameron, 
and from there reviewed the firemen's procession. Each 
engine was preceded by a band, which played American 
airs; and it gave one a feeling of homesickness, and re- 
called the great days of trial and sacrifice, to hear the 
strains of " John Brown " and " Sherman's March through 
Georgia." After the procession passed and repassed, there 
was a reception in Mr. Cameron's house, and at midnight 
the General drove home to the consulate. 

As the Ashuelot came into the Peiho E-iver, a few 
days later, the party again embarked on board the Ashue- 
lot en route for Tientsin, continues the correspondent, the 
forts fired twenty-one guns, and all the troops were paraded. 
A Chinese gun-boat was awaiting, bearing Judge Denny, 
our Consul, and Mr. Dillon, French Consul and Dean of 
the Consular corps. As we came near Tientsin the scene 
was imposing. Wherever we passed a fort twenty-one 
guns were fired. All the junks and vessels were dressed in 
bunting. A fleet of Chinese gun-boats formed in line, and 
each vessel manned yards. The booming of the cannon, 
the waving of the flags, the manned yards, the multitude 
that lined the banks, the fleet of junks massed together and 
covered with curious lookers-on, the stately Ashuelot, car- 
rying the American flag at the fore, towering high above 
the slender Chinese vessels and answering salutes gun for 
gun ; the noise, the smoke, the glitter of arms, the blending 
and waving of banners and flags which lined the forts and 
the rigging like a fringe — all combined to form one of the 
most vivid and imposing pageants of our journey. The 
General stood on the quarter-deck, with Commander John- 
son, Mr. Holcombe, Judge Denny, and Mr. Dillon, making 



AROUND THE WORLD. 711 

acknowledgments by raising his hat as he passed each ship. 
As we came near the landing, the yacht of the Viceroy, car- 
rying his flag, steamed towards us, and as soon as our anchor 
found its place hauled alongside. First came two manda- 
rins carrying the Viceroy's card. General Grant stood at 
the gangway, accompanied by the ofi&cers of the ship, and 
as the Viceroy stepped over the side of the Ashuelot the 
yards were manned and a salute was fired. Judge Denny, 
advancing, met the Viceroy and presented him to General 
Grant as the great soldier and statesman of China. The 
Viceroy presented the members of his suite, and the Gen- 
eral, taking his arm, led him to the upper deck, where the 
two Generals sat in conversation for some time, while tea 
and cigars and wine were j)assed around in approved Chi- 
nese fashion. 

Li-Hung-Chang strikes you at first by his stature, 
which would be unusual in a European, and was especially 
notable among his Chinese attendants, over whom he tow- 
ered. He has a keen eye, a large head and wide forehead, 
and speaks with a quick, decisive manner. When he met 
the General he studied his face curiously, and seemed to 
show great pleasure, not merely the j^leasure expressed in 
mere courtesy, but sincere gratification. Between the Gen- 
eral and the Viceroy friendly relations grew up, and while 
in Tientsin they saw a great deal of each other. The Vice- 
roy said at the first meeting that he did not care merely 
to look at General Grant or even to make his acquaintance, 
but to know him well and talk with him. As the Viceroy 
is known to be among the advanced school of Chinese 
statesmen, not afraid of railways and telegraphs, and anx- 
ious to strengthen and develop China by all the agencies of 
outside civilization, the General found a ground upon which 
they could meet and talk. The subject so near to the 
Viceroy's heart is one about which few men living are 



712 GRANT'S TOUR 

better informed than General Grant. During his stay in 
China, wherever the General has met Chinese statesmen, 
he has impressed upon them the necessity of developing 
their country and of doing it themselves. No man has 
ever visited China who has had the opportunities of seeing 
Chinese statesmen accorded to the General, and he has 
used these opportunities to urge China to throw open her 
barriers and be one in commerce and trade with the outer 
world. 

The visit of the Viceroy to the General was returned 
next day in great pomp. There was a marine guard from 
the Ashuelot. We went to the viceregal palace in the 
Viceroy's yacht, and as we steamed up the river, every 
foot of ground, every spot on the junks, was covered with 
people. At the landing, troops were drawn w^. A chair 
lined with yellow silk — such a chair as is only used by 
the Emperor — was awaiting the General. As far as the 
eye could reach the multitude stood expectant and gazing, 
and we went to the palace through a line of troops, who 
stood with arms at a present. Amid the firing of guns, the 
beating of gongs, our procession slowly marched to the 
palace-door. The Viceroy, surrounded by his mandarins 
and attendants, welcomed the General. At the close of 
the interview, the General and the Viceroy sat for a pho- 
tograph. This picture Li-Hung-Chang wished to pre- 
serve as a memento of the General's visit, and it was taken 
in one of the palace-rooms. A day or two later there was 
a ceremonial dinner given in a temple. The hour was 
noon, and the Viceroy invited several guests to meet the 
General. Of Chinese there were several high officials. 
Among the Europeans were Judge Denny, Mr. Forrest, the 
British Consul ; Mr. Dillon, the French Consul ; Colonel 
Grant, the German and Kussian Consuls, Mr. Detring, the 
Commissioner of Customs ; Mr. Pethich, the Vice-Consul. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 713 

Commander M. L. Johnson, commanding the Ashuelot, 
and the commander of the British gun-boat the Frolic. 
The dinner was a stupendous, princely affair, containing 
all the best points of Chinese and European cookery, and, 
although the hour was noon, the afternoon had far gone, 
when it came to an end. 

Before it ended, Mr. Detrihg, on behalf of the Vice- 
roy, arose and read this speech : — 

Gentlemen: — It has given me great pleasure to welcome 
you as my guest to-day, more especially as you aid me in showing 
honor to the distinguished man who is now Avith us. General 
Grant's eminent talents as a soldier and a statesman, and his popu- 
larity while chief ruler of a great country, are known to us all. 
I think it may be said of him now, as it was said of Washington 
a century ago, that he is " first in war, first in peace, and first in 
the hearts of his countrymen." His fame, and the admiration 
and respect it excites, are not confined to his own country, as the 
events of his present tour around the world will prove, and China 
should not be thought unwilling to welcome such a visitor. I 
thank the General for the honor he has conferred upon me. I 
thank you all, gentlemen, for the pleasure you have given me 
to-day, and I now ask you to join me in drinking the health of 
General Grant, and wishing him increasing fame and prosperity. 

The Viceroy and all his guests arose and remained 
standing while Mr. Detring read this speech. At the 
close, the Viceroy lifted a glass of wine and, bowing to 
the General, drank the toast. General Grant then arose 
and said : — 

Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Consular 
Corps : — I am very much obliged to you for the welcome I 
have received in Tientsin, which is only a repetition of the kind- 
ness shown to me by the representatives of all nations since I 
came within the coasts of China. I am grateful to the Viceroy 
for the especial consideration which I have received at his hands. 
His history as a soldier and statesman of the Chinese Empire 



714 GRANT'S TOUR 

has been known to me, as it has been known to all at home who 
have followed Chinese affairs, for a quarter of a century. I am 
glad to meet one who has done such great services to his country. 
My visit to China has been full of interest. I have learned a 
great deal of the civilization, the manners, the achievements, and 
the industry of the Chinese people, and I shall leave the country 
with feelings of friendship towards them, and a desire that they 
may be brought into relations of the closest commercial alliance 
and intercourse with the other nations. I trust that the Viceroy 
will some time find it in his power to visit my country, when I 
shall be proud to return, as far as I can, the hospitality I have 
received from him. Again thanking your Excellency for your 
reception, and you, gentlemen of the Consular corps,, for your 
kindness, I ask you to join with me in a toast to the prosperity 
of China and the health of the Viceroy. 

When this speech was ended there was tea, and then 
came cigars. The Viceroy had arranged for a photograph 
of the whole dinner-party ; so our portraits were taken in 
the room where we had dined, the Viceroy and the Gen- 
eral sitting in the middle beside a small tea-table. On the 
side of the General were the European, on that of the 
Viceroy the Chinese, members of the party. This func- 
tion over, we returned to our yacht, amid the same cere- 
monies* as those which attended our coming, and steamed 
back to the Consulate, the river still lined with thousands 
of Chinamen. 

The progress of the foreign settlement of Tientsin is a 
fair indication of progress in China. The name "Tien- 
tsin " means " Heaven's Ford." The city lies at the junc- 
tion of the Peiho River with the Grand Canal, in latitude 
39 deg. 10 min. north, longitude 117 deg. 3 min. bb sec. 
east. It is the largest city in the province, next to Pekin, 
and commercially has more importance, because Pekin is 
simjoly a capital given over to officials and soldiers, while 
Tientsin is the depot for a large trade. The population of 



AROUND THE WORLD. 715 

the Chinese town is estimated at half a million, although 
there are no statistics that can be depended upon. The 
port was opened in 1860, under the treaty enforced by the 
British at the time of the campaign that culminated in the 
glorious and ever memorable destruction of the Summer 
Palace. At that time the only Europeans were the few 
missionaries who lived in the Chinese town. We made a 
tour of the town in chairs, and nothing more dismal and 
dreary have we seen in China. The streets were covered 
with dust, the sun shone down upon hard, baked walls ; the 
sewers were open, and the air was laden with odors that 
suggested pestilence and explained the dreadful outbreaks 
of typhus and small-pox with which the city is so often 
visited. One of the first sights that attracted me was the 
number of people whose faces were pitted with small-pox. 
Mr. Holcombe informed me that small-pox had no terror 
for the Chinese, and that they did not believe it was con- 
tagious. In walking along the line of one of the Viceroy's 
regiments drawn up to salute the General, it seemed as if 
every other soldier's face bore marks of the disease. One 
visit to Tientsin, especially under the burning sun which 
has beamed upon us during our stay, was enough for obser- 
vation and curiosity. 

The foreign settlement runs along the river. Streets 
have been laid out. Houses stand back in the gardens. 
Trees throw their shadows over the lanes. The houses are 
neat and tasteful, and the French Consulate is especially a 
striking building. This, however, was built by the Chinese 
as an act of reparation for the Tientsin massacre, one of the 
saddest events in the recent history of China. The Amer- 
ican Consulate is a pleasant, modest little house that stands 
in the centre of a garden. The garden had been turned 
into a conservatory on the occasion of the General's visit, 
flowers in great profusion having been brought from all 



716 GRANT'S TOUR 

parts of the settlement. The whole settlement seemed to 
unite in doing honor to the General, and this hearty sym- 
pathy, in which every one joined, was among the most 
a2:reeable features of the General's visit to Tientsin. Even 
the captain of the British gun-boat showed his good- will by 
sending his crew and marines to act as a guard of honor at 
the house of the Consul. There was nothing oppressive in 
the hospitality, as has been the case in so many of the 
places visited by the General. The French Consul, Mr- 
Dillon, gave a dinner and a garden-party, at which all the 
inhabitants attended. The grounds were beautifully illu- 
minated. One of the features of the dinner at the French 
Consul's was the presence of the Viceroy. This was the 
first time the Viceroy had ever attended a dinner-party at 
which Europeans were present with their wives. The only 
difference in the arrangement of the table was that the 
General escorted the Viceroy to the table, the ladies coming 
in after and sitting in a group on one side of the table. It 
was a quaint arrangement and not without its advantages, 
and the Viceroy, notwithstanding he was breaking through 
customs as old as the civilization of China, and apt to bring 
down upon him the censure of conservatives and the dis- 
pleasure of the censors who sit in Pekin in judgment upon 
all officers of the Empire high and low, seemed to enjoy 
the feast. 

The fete at the French Consul's was made brilliant by 
a display of fireworks, which gave us a new idea of what 
was possible in pyrotechny under the cunning hands of the 
Chinaman. There was also a display of jugglery, the 
Viceroy, the General, and the ladies of the party sitting on 
the balcony and watching the performers. I jvas told that 
the Viceroy had never even seen a Chinese juggler before, 
and he certainly seemed to be pleased with the show. 
There was nothing startling about the tricks, except that 



AROUND THE WORLD, 717 

what was done was pure sleight of hand. There were no 
machinery, no screens and curtains and cupboards. All 
that the players required were a blanket and a fan. They 
stood on the lawn and performed their tricks with the 
crowd all about them, drawing bowls full of water and 
dishes of soup and other cumbrous and clumsy articles 
from impossible places. At midnight the fete ended, and, 
considering the small colony and the resources possible to 
so limited a community, it was a great success. 



CHAPTEK XXXVII. 

CONCEENING PEKIN BOAT-LIFE ON THE PEIHO EM- 

BAKKING FOE, PEKIN — THE END OF THE JOUENEY 

THE AMEEICAN LEGATION VISIT TO PEINCE KUNG 

WELCOME BY THE AMEEICAN COLONY GEANT's EE- 

PLY THE EECEPTION BY THE PEINCE A CHINESE 

ENTEETAINMENT THE UNIVEESITY. 

Continuing the narrative of their Eastern journey, the 
correspondent of the New York Herald writes : — 

The question of how we should go to Pekin had been 
gravely discussed. You can go on horseback, or in carts, 
or in boats. It is only a question of degree in discomfort, 
for there is no comfort in China — none, at least, in travel. 
The quickest way of reaching Pekin from Tientsin is by 
horse. Horseback-riding is the j^i'incipal amusement in 
Tientsin, and you can find good horses with Chinese at- 
tendants at a reasonable rate. Mr. Holcombe went ahead 
in a cart, so as to prepare the legation for the reception of 
the General and party. The cart in China is the accus- 
tomed method of travel, although an attempt at luxury 
has been made in arranging a mule cart or litter. The 
litter seems to be a recollection of the Indian litter or 
joalanquin. You creep into an oblong box with a rest for 
the head, should you care to lie down. This box is mounted 
on shafts, and you have a mule leading and another bring- 
ing up the rear. While reviewing our arrangements for 
the journey, Mr. Holcombe, who has seen nearly every 
form of adventure and travel in China, gave his preference 
to the mule litter. The horse was impossible for the ladies 
of the expedition. The carts embodied so many forms of 

718 



AROUND THE WORLD. 719 

discomfort that we were not brave enough to venture. 
They have no springs, and the roads, worn and torn and 
gashed, make travel a misery. There was no available 
method but the boats, and all day Judge Denny and other 
friends were busy in arranging the boats for the comfort 
of the General. In this labor the Judge was assisted by 
Mr. Hill, an old American resident of China, who knew the 
language, and who was so anxious to do honor to General 
Grant that he volunteered as quartermaster and admiral 
of the expedition. It would have been difficult to find a 
better quartermaster. There was no trouble, no care, that 
he did not take to insure us a safe and easy road to Pekin. 
When the boats necessary assembled, they formed quite 
a fleet. They were moored near the Ashuelot, and all the 
morning Chinamen were running backward and forward, 
carrying furniture and food. The party who visited Pekin 
were General Grant and Mrs. Grant; Mrs. Holcombe, wife 
of the acting American Minister; Colonel Grant, Lieu- 
tenant Belknap, Mr. Deering, and Mr. Case, officers of the 
Ashuelot. Mr. Hill, as I have said, went along as quarter- 
master. Mr. Pethich, the accomplished Vice-Consul of 
Tientsin, and one of the best Chinese scholars in our ser- 
vice, and the secretary of the Viceroy, an amiable young 
mandarin, who knew English enough to say " Good-morn- 
ing," were among our scouts. There were two small, shal- 
low gun-boats, which seemed to have no guns, except 
muskets, that brought up our rear. The General's boat 
was what is called a mandarin's boat — a large, clumsy con- 
trivance, that looked, as it towered over the remainder of 
the fleet, like Noah's ark. It had been cleaned up and 
freshened, and was roomy. There were two bedrooms, a 
small dining-room, and in the stern what seemed to be a 
Chinese laundry-house, three stories high. It seemed alive 
with women aiid children, who were always peeping out 



720 GRANT'S TOUR 

of windows and port-holes to see what new prank the bar- 
barians were performing, and scampering away if gazed at. 
These were the families of the boatmen, who have no other 
home but the river. The other boats were small, plain 
shells, divided into two rooms and covered over. The 
rear of the boat was given to the boatmen, the front to the 
passengers. In this front room was a raised platform of 
plain pine boards, wide enough for two to sleep. There 
was room for a chair and a couple of tables. If the 
weather was pleasant, we could open the sides by taking 
out the slats, and as we reclined on the bed look out on 
the scenery. But during the day it was too warm, and in 
addition to the sun there were streaming clouds of dust 
that covered everything. During the night it was cold 
enough for blankets, so that our boats were rarely or never 
open, and we burrowed away most of the time as though 
in a kennel or a cage. Each of the small boats had room 
for two persons. In the rear the cooking was done. The 
General had a special cooking-boat which brought up the 
rear, and when the hour for meals came was hauled along- 
side. 

We should have been under way at daybreak, and the 
General was up at an early hour and anxious to be away. 
But the Chinese mind works slowly, and a visit to the Gen- 
eral's boat — the flagship, as we called it — showed that it 
would be noon before we could go. Judge Denny had 
taken off his coat, and was trying to stimulate the Chinese 
mind by an example of Western energy. But it was of no 
use. The Chinaman has his pace for every function, and 
was not to be hurried. The day was oppressively warm, 
and the knowledge of the General's departure had brought 
a multitude of Chinamen to the water-side — of the curious 
people who think it no hardship to stand all day around 
the consulate watching for a glimpse of the General. About 



AROUND THE WORLD. 721 

noon the last biscuit had been stored, all the sails were 
hoisted, and the fleet moved away under the command of 
Quartermaster and Admiral Hill. The purpose was to pull 
through the wilderness of junks that crowd the river for 
miles, and wait the General above. An hour later the 
General went on board the Viceroy's private yacht and 
pushed up the river. A small steam-launch from the 
Ashuelot led the way. The result of this was advan- 
tageous. If the General had gone in his own boat, it would 
have taken him some time to thread his way through the 
junks. But a boat carrying the viceregal flag has terror 
for the boatmen, who, as soon as they saw it coming, hastened 
to make room. A Chinese officer stood in the bow and 
encouraged them to this by loud cries and imprecations. 
Whenever there was any apathy, he would reach over with 
his bamboo pole and beat the sluggard over the shoulders. 
It was woe to any boatman who crossed our path, and only 
one or two ventured to do so, to their sore discomfort. We 
pushed through the wilderness of junks at full speed. We 
passed the bridge of boats, and under the walls of the ruined 
cathedral destroyed in the Tientsin massacre of the Sisters 
of Charity. Here there was a pause, as we were j)assing 
the house of the Viceroy, and etiquette demands that when 
one great mandarin passes the home of another, he shall 
stop and send his card, and make kind inquiries. So we 
stopped until Mr. Pethich carried the General's card to the 
viceregal house, and returned with the card and the com- 
j)liments of the Viceroy. 

After taking our leave of the Viceroy,- we came into the 
open country, and found our fleet waiting under the im- 
mediate and vociferous command of Admiral Hill. The 
Admiral was on the bank, wearing a straw hat, and carry- 
ing a heavy stick, which he waved over the coolies and 
boatmen, as he admonished them of their duties. The Ad- 

42 



722 GRAuYT'S TOUR 

miral had learned the great lesson of diplomacy in the 
East — terror; and it was difficult to imagine anything 
more improving to the Chinese mind than his aspect as he 
moved about with his stick. Boating in the Peiho is an 
original experience. Sometimes you depend upon the sail. 
When the sail is useless, a rope is taken ashore, and three 
or four coolies pull you along. If you get aground, as 
you are apt to do every few minutes, the coolies splash 
into the water and push you ofP the mud by sheer force of 
loins and shoulders, like carters lifting their carts out of 
the mud. 

On the morning of the third day of our departure 
from Tientsin we awoke and found ourselves tied uj) to the 
bank at the village of Tung-Chow. This was the end of 
our journey by the river, and our little boat was in a myr- 
iad of boats, the banks lined with chattering Chinamen. 
Mr. Holcombe had ridden down from Pekin and came on 
board to greet us. The Admiral was on the bank, very 
dusty and travel worn. He had been tramping all night 
to keep the boatmen at their pulling, and his voice was 
husky from much admonition. He was in loud and cheer- 
ful spirits, and in great glee at having brought the Gen- 
eral on time. The General, however, was not in, but we 
saw his hulk slowdy moving up through the junks, tower- 
ing above them all — the American flag at the masthead. 
The available population of the village had been assem- 
bled, and something like a step had been erected, covered 
with red cloth, where there was to be an official landing. 
There were mandarins and officers from the Foreign Office, 
and an escort of horsemen and coolies with chairs, who 
were to carry us to Pekin. Prince Kung, the Prince Pe- 
gjnt, had sent the escort, and we were glad to learn from 
Mr, Holcombe that there was every disj)Osition among the 
rulers of China to show the General all the courtesy in 



AROUND THE WORLD. 723 

tlieir power — to treat him with a respect, even with a 
pomp, that had never before been extended to a foreigner. 

It was some time before the General's hulk was drao-ged 
into 230sition, and it was only by extreme authority on the 
Admiral's part, and the loyal co-operation of other Chi- 
nese officials, who had sticks, that the boat was finally tied 
to the shore. It was early in the morning, and there was 
no sign of the General stirring. So we stood around and 
studied the crowd and talked over the incidents of the 
night and paid compliments to Admiral Hill upon the 
vigorous manner in which he had taken us up the Peiho. 

In time the General arose, and then came all the offi- 
cials of Tung-Chow — mandarins in red and blue buttons 
— to welcome the General and ask him to remain and 
breakfast with them. But the sun was rising, and it was 
important to reach Pekin if possible before he was on us 
in all of his power. There were chairs from Prince Hung 
for some of the party and horses for others. There were 
mule litters for the luggage and donkeys for the servants, 
and at eight o'clock we were under way. The General 
rode ahead in a chair carried by eight bearers. This is an 
honor paid only to the highest persons in China. The 
other chairs were carried by four bearers. Mrs. Grant and 
Mrs. Holcombe rode some distance behind the General, 
two other chairs were occupied by two other members of 
the party and the rest mounted. By the time we formed 
in j^rocession it was really a j)rocession, a little army. Our 
own party, with the servants, was large enough, and to 
this was added the Chinese troops who Avere to escort us to 
Pekin. 

So we scrambled up the dusky bank and into the gates 
of the town and through the narrow streets. The whole 
town was out, and, as our chairs passed, the people stared 
at the occupants with curious eyes. Tradesmen left their 



724 GRANT'S TOUR 

booths, and workmen tlieir avocations, to see the barbari- 
ans who had invaded Tung-Chow, and were marching 
through, not as invaders nor as prisoners, but as the hon- 
ored guests of the Empire. Invaders and prisoners had 
been seen before, but never a barbarian. 

Shortly after midday, we saw, in the distance, the walls 
and towers of Pekin. We passed near a bridge, where 
there had been a contest between the French and Chinese 
during the Anglo-French expedition, and one of the re- 
sults of which was that the officer who commanded the 
French should be made a nobleman, under the name of 
Count Palikao, and had later adventures in French his- 
tory. As we neared the city the walls loomed up, and 
seemed harsh and forbidding, built with care and strength, 
as if to defend the city. We came to a gate, and were car- 
ried through a stone arched way, and halted, so that a new 
escort could join the General's party. The people in Pe- 
kin, after we passed the bazaars, did not seem to note our 
presence. Our escort rode on over the wide, dusty lanes 
called streets, and all that we saw of the city was the dust 
which arose from the hoofs of the horses who straggled on 
ahead. We were so hot, so weary with riding in our 
chairs, so stifled with the dust, that it was an unspeakable 
relief to see at last the American flag floating over the gate- 
way of the legation. Here were guards and tents for 
guardsmen, to do honor to the General during his stay. 
A few minutes after one o'clock, after five hours of a se- 
vere and uncomfortable ride, we entered the legation, and 
met a grateful and graceful welcome from our hosts. 

The legation in Pekin is shut off from the main street 
by a wall. As you enter you pass a small lodge, from 
which Chinese servants look out with inquiring eyes. 
The American flag floats over the archway, an indication 
that General Grant has made his home here. It is the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 727 

habit for tlie legations ordinarily to display their colors 
only on Sundays and holidays. On the right side of the 
walk is a series of low one-storied buildings, which is the 
home of the American Minister. They are of brick, 
painted drab, and covered with tiles. Nothing could be 
plainer, and at the same time more commodious and com- 
fortable. On the left side is another series, where the 
Charge d' Affaires, Mr. Holcombe, the acting Minister, re- 
sides. In the rear is a smaller building, for the archives 
of the legation. Standing a little way off from the house 
of the Charge d' Affaires is a building called the pavilion, 
set apart for guests. In -the arrangement of the grounds 
and the buildings you note American simplicity and 
American energy. General Grant lives in Mr. Holcombe's 
apartments ; the Colonel and I are in the pavilion. Our 
naval friends are in Mr. Seward's house, under Dr. El- 
more's hospitality, which is thoughtful and untiring. The 
legation offices are plain," but neatly kept. You have a 
library, with the laws of the United States, Congress ar- 
chives, newspapers, and the latest mails. In a side room 
are an English clerk and a Chinese clerk. Behind this 
office is a row of other buildings, where the servants live 
and where the horses are kept. 

An hour or two after General Grant's arrival he was 
waited upon by the members of the Cabinet, who came in 
a body, accompanied by the military and civil governors 
of Pekin. These are the highest officials in China, men 
of grace and stately demeanor. They were received in 
Chinese fashion, seated around a table covered with sweet- 
meats, and served with tea. The First Secretary brought 
with him the card of Prince Kung, the Prince Regent of 
the Empire, and said that His Imperial Highness had 
charged him to present all kind wishes to General Grant, 
and to express the hope that the trip to China had been 



728 GRANT'S TOUR 

pleasant. The Secretary also said that as soon as the 
Prince Kegent heard from the Chinese Minister in Paris 
that General Grant was coming to China, he sent orders to 
the officials to receive him with due honor. The General 
said that he had received nothing but honor and courtesy 
from China, and thi§ answer pleased the Secretary, who 
said he would be happy to carry it to the Prince Pegent. 

General Grant did not ask an audience of the Em- 
peror. The Emperor is a child seven years of age, at his 
books, not in good health, and under the care of two old 
ladies called the em|)resses. When the Chinese Minister 
in Paris spoke to the General about audience, and his re- 
gret that the sovereign of China was not of age, that he 
might personally entertain the ex-President, the General 
said he hoped no question of audience would be raised. 
He had no jDcrsonal curiosity to see the Emperor. 

As soon as General Grant arrived at Pekin he was met 
by the Secretary of State, who brought the card of Prince 
Kung, and said His Imperial Highness would be glad to 
see General Grant at any time. The General named the 
succeeding day, at three. The General and party left the 
legation at half-past two, the party embracing Mr. Hol- 
combe, the acting Minister; Colonel Grant, Lieutenant 
Charles Belknap, C. W. Deering, and A. Ludlow Case, 
Jr., of the Ashuelot. The way to the Yamen was over 
dirty roads and through a disagreeable part of the town, 
the day being unusually warm, the thermometer marking 
101 degrees in the shade. This is a trying temperature 
under the best circumstances, but in Pekin there was every 
possible condition of discomfort in addition. When we 
came to the court-yard of the Yamen, the secretaries and 
a group of mandarins received the General and his party, 
and escorted them into the inner court. Prince Kung, 
who was standing at the door, with a group of high officers, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 729 

advanced and saluted the General, and said a few words 
of welcome, which were translated by. Mr. Holcombe. 

On the evening of our arrival, the American residents 
in Pekin called in a body on the General, to welcome him 
and read an address. Dinner over, our party entered the 
legation parlors, and were presented to the small colony 
of the favored peoj^le who have pitched their tents in 
Pekin. The members of this colony are missionaries, 
members of the customs staff, diplomatists, and one or two 
who have claims or schemes for the consideration of the 
Chinese Government. After being introduced to the Gen- 
eral and his jDarty, Dr. Martin, the President of the Chi- 
nese English University, stepped forward and read an ad- 
dress welcoming General Grant to the city. 

In reply, the General said he was always glad to meet 
his fellow-countrymen, and the kind words in which lie 
had been welcomed added to the pleasure which such a 
meeting afforded in Pekin. The Americans were a won- 
derful peoj)le, he said, smiling, for you found them every- 
where, even here in this distant and inaccessible capital. 
He was especially pleased with the allusion, in the address, 
to the fact that in America a career was possible to the 
humblest station in life. His own career was one of the 
best examples of the possibilities oj^en to any man and 
every man at home. That feature in America he was 
proud to recognize, for it was one of the golden principles 
in our government. The General again thanked the dele- 
gation for their kindness, wished them all jorosperity in 
their labors in China, and a happy return to their homes, 
where he hoped some day to meet them. 

The visit to the Prince is thus described: — The Prince 
saluted General Grant in Tartar fashion, looking at him 
for a moment with" an earnest, curious gaze, like one who 
had formed an ideal of some kind and was anxious to see 



730 GRANT'S TOUR 

how far liis ideal had been realized. The sun was beating 
down, and the party passed into a large, plainly furnished 
room, where there was a table laden with Chinese food. 
The Prince, sitting down at the centre, gave General Grant 
the seat at his left, the post of honor in China. He then 
took up the cards one by one, which had been written in 
Chinese characters on red pajDcr, and asked Mr. Holcombe for 
the name and station of each member of the General's suite. 
He spoke to Colonel Grant, and asked him the meaning of 
the uniform he wore, the rank it showed, and its age. He 
asked whether the Colonel was married and had children. 
When told that he had one child, a daughter, the Prince 
condoled with him, saying, " What a pity ! " In China, you 
must remember that female children do riot count in the 
sum of human happiness ; and when the Prince expressed 
his regret at the existence of the General's granddaughter, 
he was saying the most polite thing he knew. The Prince 
was polite to the naval officers, inquiring the special rank 
of each, and saying that they must be anxious to return 
home. It was a matter of surprise, of courteous surprise 
and congratulation on the part of the Prince, that the 
writer had seen so many countries as the companion of 
the General, and he said that no doubt I had found things 
much different elsewhere from what I saw in China. Be- 
yond these phrases, the manner of which was as perfect as 
if it had been learned in Versailles under Louis XIV., the 
conversation was wholly with General Grant. 

The Prince returned to his perusal of the face of the 
General as though it were an unlearned lesson. He ex- 
pected a uniformed person — a man of the dragon or lion 
species, who could make a great noise. What he saw was 
a quiet, middle-aged gentleman, in evening dress, who had 
ridden a long way in the dust and sun, and who was look- 
ing in subdued dismay at servants who swarmed around 



AROUND THE WORLD. 731 

him with dishes of soups and sweetmeats, dishes of bird's- 
nest soup, sharks' fins, roast ducks, bamboo sprouts, and a 
teapot, with a hot, insipid tipple made of rice, tasting like 
a remembrance of sherry, which was poured into small 
silver cups. We were none of us hungry. We had had 
luncheon, and we were on the programme for a sjDccial 
banquet in the evening. Here was a profuse and sum^D- 
tuous entertainment. The dinner differed from those in 
Tientsin, Canton, and Shanghai, in the fact that it was 
more quiet ; there was no disj^lay or ]3arade, no crowd of 
dusky servants and retainers hanging around and looking 
on as though at a comedy. I did not think the Prince 
himself cared much about eating, because he merely dawdled 
over the bird's-nest soup, and did not touch the sharks' 
fins ; nor in fact did any of the Ministers except one, who, 
in default of our remembering his Chinese name and rank, 
one of the party called Ben Butler. The dinner, as far as 
the General was concerned, soon merged into a cigar ; and 
the Prince toyed with the dishes as they came and went, 
and smoked his pipe. 

We could not remain long enough in the Yamen to 
finish the dinner, as we had an engagement to visit the 
college for the teaching of an English education to young 
Chinese. This institution is under the direction of Dr. 
Martin, an American, and the buildings adjoin the Yamen. 
Consequently, on taking leave of the Prince, who said he 
would call and see the General at the legation, we walked 
a few steps and were escorted into the class-room of the 
college. Dr. Martin presented General Grant to the stu- 
dents and professors, and one of the students read an ad- 
dress of welcome. 

General Grant replied very briefly, thanking them for 
their kind words of welcome, and expressing the hope that 
the future might be ever bright, not only of each indi- 
vidual, but of the institution itself. 



CHAPTEE XXXVIIL 

PEIlSrCE KUNG EETUENS GENEEAL GEANT's VISIT — A EE- 

MAEKABLE CONVEESATION THE LOOCHOO ISLANDS 

GENERAL GEANT BECOMES A MESSENGEE OF PEACE 

THE SITUATION HOW JAPAN HAS TEEATED CHINA 

WAE NOT DESIEED HOW JAPAN CAPTUEED LOOCHOO 

WHAT CHINA WANTS THE DISPUTED TEEEITOEY. 

Prince Kung was punctual in his return of the call of 
General Grant. He came to the legation in his chair, and 
was received by General Grant in the parlors of the le- 
gation. Several officers from the Richmond happened to 
be in Pekin on a holiday, and the General invited them, as 
well as the officers of the Ashuelot, who were at the le- 
gation, to receive the Prince. As all the officers were in 
full uniform, the reception of the Prince became almost an 
imposing affiiir. The Prince was accompanied by the 
Grand Secretaries, and as soon as he was presented to the 
members of the General's party he was led into the dining- 
room, and we all sat around a table and were given tea and 
sweetmeats and champagne. During this visit there oc- 
curred the following remarkable conversation. 

Prince Kung. — There is one question about which I 
am anxious to confer with you. The Viceroy of Tientsin 
writes us that he has mentioned it to you. And if we could 
secure your good offices, or your advice, it would be a great 
benefit, not only to us, but to all nations, and especially in 
the East. I refer to the questions now pending between 
China and Japan. 

General Grant. — In reference to the trouble in the 
Loochoo Islands ? 

732 



AROUND THE W O R L D .% 733 

Prince Kung. — Yes ; about tlie sovereignty of Loo- 
clioo and tlie attempt of the Japanese to extinguish a king- 
dom which has always been friendly, and whose sovereign 
has always paid us tribute, not only the present sovereign 
but his ancestors for centuries. 

General Grant. — The Viceroy spoke to me on the sub- 
ject, and has promised to renew the subject on my return 
to Tientsin. Beyond the casual reference of the Viceroy 
in the course of conversations on the occasion of interviews 
that were confined mainly to ceremonies, I am entirely 
ignorant of the questions. 

Prince Kung. — We all feel a great delicacy in refer- 
ring to this or any other matter of business on the occasion 
of your visit to Pekin — a visit that we know to be one of 
pleasure and that should not be troubled by business. I 
should not have ventured upon such a liberty, if I had not 
been informed by the Viceroy of the kind manner in which 
you received his allusions to the matter and your known 
devotion to j)eace and justice. I feel that I should apolo- 
gize even for the reference I have made, which I would 
not have ventured upon but for the report of the Viceroy, 
and our conviction that one who has had so high a place 
in determining the affairs of the world can have no higher 
interest than furthering peace and justice. 

General Grant. — I told the Viceroy, that anything I 
could do in the interest of peace was my duty and my 
pleasure. I can conceive of no higher office for any man. 
But I am not in office. I am merely a private citizen, 
journeying about like others, with no share in the Govern- 
ment and no power. The Government has given me a ship 
of war whenever I can use it without interfering with its 
duties, but that is all. 

Prince Kung. — I quite understand that, and this led 
to the expression of my regret at entering upon the subject. 



734 • GRANT'S TOUR 

But we all know how vast your influence must be, not only 
upon your people at home, but upon all nations who know 
what you have done, and who know that whatever question 
you considered would be considered with patience and wis- 
dom and a desire for justice and peace. You are going to 
Japan as the gtiest of the people and the Emperor, and 
will have opportunities of presenting our views to the Em- 
peror of Japan and of showing him that we have no policy 
but justice. 

General Grant. — Yes, I am going to Japan as the guest 
of the Emperor and nation. 

Prince Kung. — That affords us the opportunity that we 
cannot overlook. The Viceroy writes us that he has pre- 
pared a statement of the whole case, drawn from the rec- 
ords of our Empire, and he will put you in possession of 
all the facts from our point of view. 

General Grant. — The King of the Loochoo Islands 
has, I believe, paid tribute to China as well as Japan. 

Prince Kung. — For generations. I do not know how 
long with Japan, but for generations Loochoo has recog- 
nized the sovereignty of China. Not alone during the 
present, but in the time of the Ming Emperors, the dy- 
nasty that preceded our own, this recognition was unchal- 
lenged, and Loochoo became as well known as an inde- 
pendent Power in the East owing allegiance^ only to our 
Emperor as any other part of our dominions. 

General Grant. — Has Japan made her claim ujDon 
Loochoo a subject of negotiation with China? Has she 
ever presented your Government with her view of her claim 
to the Islands ? 

Prince Kung. — Jaj^an has a Minister in Pekin. He 
came here some time since amid circumstances of ostenta- 
tion, and great importance was attached to his coming. 
There was a great deal said about it at the time, and it 



AROUND THE WORLD. 735 

was said that the interchange of Ministers would be of 
much importance to both nations. We sent a Minister to 
Japan, an able and prudent man, who is there now. This 
showed our desire to reciprocate. We supposed, of course, 
that when the Japanese Minister came there would be a 
complete exjDlanation and understanding in Loochoo. AVe 
welcomed his coming in this spirit and in the interest of 
peace. AVhen he came to the Yamen, and we brought 
up Loochoo, ke knew nothing about the subject, nothing 
about the wishes or the attitude of his Government. 
We naturally inquired what brought him here as a 
Minister. Of what use was a Minister, if he could not 
transact business of such vital consequence to both na- 
tions and to the peace of the world? He said he had 
certain matters connected with the trade of the two coun- 
tries to discuss — something of that kind. It seemed al- 
most trifling with us to say so. When we presented our 
case, he said that anything we would write or say he would 
transmit to his Government — no more. He was only a 
post-office. When our Minister in Japan |)resented the 
subject to the authorities he had no better satisfaction, and 
was so dissatisfied that he wrote to us asking permission to 
request his passports and withdraw. But we told him to 
wait and be patient, and do nothing to lead to war, or that 
might be construed as seeking war on our part. 

General Grant. — Any course short of national humilia- 
tion or national destruction is better than war. War in 
itself is so great a calamity that it should only be invoked 
when there is no way of saving a nation from a greater. 
War, especially in the East, and between two countries 
like JajDan and China, would be a misfortune — a great 
misfortune. 

Prince Kung. — A great misfortune to the outside and 
neutral Powers as well. War in the East would be a heavy 



736 GRANT'S TOUR 

blow to tlie trade upon which other nations so much de- 
pend. That is one reason why China asks your good offices, 
and hopes for those of your Government and of your Min- 
ister to Japan. We have been told of the kind disposition 
of Mr. Bingham towards us. Our Minister has told us 
of that; and one reason why we kept our Minister in 
Japan, under circumstances which would have justified 
another Power in withdrawing him, was because we knew 
of Mr. Bingham's sentiments, and we were awaiting his 
return. It is because such a war as Japan seems disposed 
to force on China would be peculiarly distressing to for- 
eiojn Powers that we have asked them to interfere. 

General Grant. — How far have the Japanese gone in 
Loochoo ? 

Prince Kung. — The King of the islands has been taken 
to Japan and de|)osed. The sovereignty has been extin- 
guished. A Japanese official has been set up. We have 
made a study of international law as written by your 
English and American authors, whose text-books are in 
Chinese. If there is any force in the principles of inter- 
national law as recognized by your nations, the extinction 
of the Loochoo sovereignty is a wrong, and one that other 
nations should consider. 

General Grant. — It would seem to be a high-handed 
proceeding to arrest a ruler and take him out of the coun- 
try, unless there is war or some grave j)rovocation. 

Prince Kung. — If there was provocation, if Japan had 
suffered any wrong in Loochoo that justified extreme action, 
why does not her Ambassador at our Court, or their own 
Ministers at home, in dealing with our embassy, give us an 
explanation ? China is a peaceful natio«i. Her j)olicy has 
been peace. No nation will make more sacrifices for peace, 
but forbearance cannot be used to our injury, to the humil- 
iation of the Emj)eror and a violation of our rights. On 



AROUND THE WORLD. 737 

this subject we feel strongly, and wlien the Viceroy wrote 
the Emperor from Tientsin that he had spoken to you on 
the subject, and that you might be induced to use your 
good offices with Japan, and with your offices your great 
name and authority, we rejoiced in what may be a means 
of escaping from a responsibility which no nation would 
deplore more than myself. 

General Grant. — As I said before, my position here 
and my position at home are not such as to give any as- 
surance that my good offices would be of any value. Here 
I am a traveller, seeing sights, and looking at new manners 
and customs. At home I am simply a private citizen, with 
no voice in the councils of the Government and no right 
to speak for the Government. 

Prince Kung (with a smile). — We have a proverb in 
Chinese that " No business is business " — in other words, 
that real affairs, great affairs are more frequently transacted 
informally, when persons meet, as we are meeting now, over 
a table of entertainment for social and friendly conversa- 
tion, than in solemn business sessions at the Yamen. I 
value the opportunities of this conversation, even in a bus- 
iness sense, more than I could any conversation with am- 
bassadors. 

General Grant. — I am much complimented by the con- 
fidence you express and in that expressed by the Viceroy. 
It would afford me the greatest pleasure — I know of no 
pleasure that could be greater — to be the means, by any 
counsel or effort of mine, in preserving peace, and espe- 
cially between two nations in which I feel so deep an in- 
terest as I do in China 'and Jajoan. I know nothing about 
this Loochoo business except what I have heard from the 
Viceroy and yourself and an occasional scrap in the news- 
papers, to which I paid little attention, as I had no interest 
in it. I know nothing of the merits of the case. I am 



738 GRANT'S TOUR 

going to Japan, and I shall take pleasure in informing 
myself on the subject in conversing with the Japanese 
authorities. I have no idea what their argument is. They, 
of course, have an argument. I do not suppose that the 
rulers are inspired by a desire to wantonly injure China. 
I will acquaint myself with the Chinese side of the case, 
as Your Imperial Highness and the Viceroy have pre- 
sented it, and promise to present it. I will do what I can 
to learn the Japanese side. Then, if I can, in conversa- 
tion with the Japanese authorities, do anything that will be 
a service to the cause of peace, you may depend upon my 
good offices. But, as I have said, I have no knowledge on 
the subject, and no idea what opinion I may entertain when 
I have studied it. 

Prince Kung. — We are j^rofoundly grateful for this 
promise. China is quite content to rest her case with your 
decision, given, as we know it will be, after care and with 
wisdom and justice. If the Japanese Government will 
meet us in this spirit, all will be well. I shall send orders 
to our Minister in Japan to wait upon you as soon as you 
reach Japan, and to speak with you on the subject. Your 
willingness to do this will be a new claim to the respect in 
which you are held in China, and be a continuance of that 
friendship shown to us by the United States, and especially 
by Mr. Burlingame, whose death we all deplored, and 
whose name is venerated in China. 

An allusion was made to the convention between Great 
Britain and America on the Alabama question — the arbi- 
tration and the settlement of a matter that might have 
embroiled the two countries. This was explained to His 
Imperial Highness as a precedent that it would be well to 
follow now. The Prince was thoroughly familiar with the 
Alabama negotiations. 

General Grant. — An arbitration between nations may 



AROUND THE WORLD. 739 

not satisfy either party at the time ; but it satisfies the con- 
science of the world, and mnst commend itself more and 
more as a means of adjusting disputes. 

Prince Kung. — The policy of China is one of reliance 
upon justice. We are willing to have any settlement that 
is honorable, and that will be considered by other nations 
as honorable to us. We desire no advantage over Japan. 
But, at the same time, we are resolved to submit to no 
wrong from Japan. On that point there is but one opinion 
in our Government. It is the opinion of the Viceroy, one 
of the great officers of the Empire, and, like yourself, not 
only a great soldier, but an advocate always of a peaceful 
policy, of concession, compromise, and conciliation. It is 
my own opinion, and I have always, as one largely con- 
cerned in the affairs of the Empire, and knowing what war 
entails, been in favor of peace. It is the opinion of the 
Yamen. I do not know of any dissension among those 
who serve the throne. Our opinion is that we cannot, 
under any circumstances, submit to the claims of Japan. 
We cannot consent to the extinction of a sovereignty, of 
an independence that has existed for so long a time under 
our protection. If Japan insists upon her present position, 
there must be war. 

General Grant. — What action on the p>art of Japan 
would satisfy China ? 

Prince Kung. — We would be satisfied with the situa- 
tion as it was. 

General Grant. — That is to say, Loochoo paying tribute 
to Japan and China. 

Prince Kung. — We do not concern ourselves with what 
tribute the King of Loochoo pays to Japan, or any other 
Power. We never have done so, and, although there is 
every reason an empire should not allow other nations to 
exact tribute from its vassals, we are content with things 

43 



740 GRANT'S TOUR 

as they have been, not only under the dynasty of my own 
ancestors and family, but under the dynasty of the Mings. 
We desire Japan to restore the King she has captured and 
taken away, to withdraw her troops from Loochoo, and aban- 
don her claims to exclusive sovereignty over the islands. 
This is our position. Other questions are open to negotia- 
tion and debate. This is not open, because it is a question 
of the integrity of the Empire. And the justice of our 
position will be felt by any one who studies the case, and 
compares the violence and aggression of Japan with the 
patience and moderation of China. 

General Grant. — I shall certainly see the Viceroy on 
my return to Tientsin, and converse with him, and read 
the documents I understand he is preparing. I shall also, 
when I meet the Japanese authorities, do what I can to 
learn their case. If I can be of any service in adjusting 
the question and securing peace, I shall be rejoiced, and it 
will be no less a cause of rejoicing if in doing so I can be 
of any service to China, or be enabled to show my appre- 
ciation of the great honor she has shown to me during my 
visit, and of the unvarying friendship she has shown our 
country. 

The islands referred to lie in the North Pacific, about 
half-way between Formosa and Japan. They are thirty- 
six in number, the largest of which is the Great Loochoo, 
of which the capital is Napakiang. The Chinese first 
learned of the existence of these islands in the year 605 
A. D., when the Emperor Yangti was on the throne. He 
at once sent messengers to inquire into their condition, as 
they had all been included under the general term " East- 
ern Barbarians." But the difficulty at once presented itself 
that neither understood the other's language. The Chinese 
were obliged to return without having accomplished any- 
thing practical, but they brought back with them several 



AROUND THE WORLD. 741 

of the islanders, who were placed in a college at Singanfoo, 
at that time the capital of China. From the Japanese, 
Yangti obtained fuller particulars of Loochoo and its 
people, and he, for a second time, ordered the despatch of 
an accredited mission, with interpreters, bearing a formal 
demand to the King to render homage to the EmjDcror of 
China as his sovereign. But the Loochoo ruler was by no 
means disposed to concede what Yangti demanded, and dis- 
missed the Chinese envoys with the haughty reply that he 
did not recognize any prince as being over or superior to 
him. Yangti did not brook what he called the defiance of 
this petty ruler. He thereupon sent a powerful fleet, with 
10,000 good troops on board, to invade Loochoo. The 
expedition was crowned with complete success. A great 
battle was fought, in which the King was killed, and the 
Chinese burned and pillaged in all directions. After re- 
maining some time in the principal island the Chinese re- 
turned, bringing with them 5000 slaves. Under the Tang 
and Song dynasties the Chinese claims were permitted to 
slumber, and it was not until the time of the Mongols or 
Yuens that they sought to revive them. But even then 
the attempt was only a fitful one. In 1329 Chitsu equipped 
an expeditionary force, but the Mongols were so disgusted 
with adventures beyond the sea, by the failure of the at- 
tempt upon Japan, that he was induced to abandon his 
enterprise before it was half carried out. In 1372 Hong- 
on, the first of the Ming Emperors, was more successful, 
obtaining by the address of his envoy what the fleet and 
power of the Mongol had failed to secure. The King of 
Loochoo, Tsai-tou by name, requested the Ming Emperor 
to invest him with possession of his States. A magnificent 
reception was accorded the messengers from Loochoo, and 
the Emperor gave his new vassal a gold seal in token of 
his appreciation of his loyalty. It was at this time that 



742 GRANT'S TOUR. 

Chinese subjects first began to settle in Loocboo, bringing 
with them the Chinese character to the unlettered islanders, 
and a new religion. This connection continued through- 
out the succeeding reigns, and on one occasion the King of 
Loocboo acted as a kind of intermediary between China 
and Japan. During the naval war that was carried on be- 
tween those Powers in the sixteenth century, the Loochoo- 
ans helped the Chinese very materially, and in return the 
Emperor granted them special trade privileges. When the 
Manchus conquered China, the King of Loocboo still con- 
tinued to send tribute. Both to Chuntche, to Kanghi, and 
to Yung-Ching, as well as to Keen-Lung, and several of 
his successors, he rendered fealty, and on several occasions 
missions were sent from the One court to the other. The 
old connection between China and Loocboo has been main- 
tained down almost to the present day, and so far as we 
know, it is not probable that the people of those islands 
would, of their own accord, have cast off the purely nominal 
tie which bound them to China. The Japanese have most 
probably brought the matter to a crisis, and we shall soon 
know whether the Chinese Government will acquiesce with- 
out an effort in the loss of those historical claims which it 
so dearly prizes. The Pekin Government has not of late 
been in the mood to waive any of its privileges over its 
tributaries and vassals. 



CHAPTEK XXXIX. 

GENEKAL GRANT AND PAETY VISIT THE GREAT WALL OF 
CHINA ALONG THE MONGOLIAN COAST THE FAR- 
THEST POINT OF THE JOURNEY A MIDNIGHT SALUTE 

FAREWELL TO CHINA BOUND FOE JAPAN NAGA- 
SAKI LANDING AND RECEPTION ADDRESS OF THE 

GOVERNOR GENERAL GRANT's REPLY A JAPANESE 

DINNER MUSIC IS INTRODUCED A MAGNIFICENT AF- 
FAIR. 

A visit to the Great Wall of Chinais thus described : — 
It seems to be a duty incumbent upon all who come to the 
East to visit the Great Wall of China. General Grant had 
planned a trip while we were in Pekin, and Mr. Holcombe 
had made all the arrangements. The Chinese Government 
had, with ready courtesy, given orders as to our treatment 
by the way, and the important question as to how we should 
go had formed a living theme of talk amid the depressing 
days of midsummer weather at the legation. You can go 
on horseback or on donkeys, or in a cart or in a mule litter ; 
and when we had nothing else to do we went over the 
merits and demerits of each form of conveyance. Our old 
friend from the Nile, — the donkey, — whose achievements 
gave us an exalted idea of his patience and endurance, 
would have won the preference, but for the condition of 
the roads, which seem not to have been mended since the 
Tartar invasion. Mr. Holcombe told me had travelled all 
through Northern China, and in every form of convey- 
ance, and that he found the most comfort in the mule 
litter. The mule litter is swung on poles and carried by 
'two mules, one going ahead, the other behind. It is long 

743 



744 GRANT'S TOUR 

enough to enable you to recline. You creep in and huddle 
up, and your mules dawdle away with you. Somehow it 
gave the impression of going to your own funeral. The 
ordinary cart of the country, without springs or seats or 
cushions, in which you sit with your legs curled up or 
dangling over the sides, is torture. If we had made the 
trip, we should have walked most of the way, and had the 
carts and litters for smooth roads and fatigue, and other 
emergencies. The more the journey was considered, the 
less attractive it became. We were under the cruel stress 
of unusually warm weather. The thermometer was wan- 
dering about above the hundred-degree mark. Our journey 
to the Temple of Heaven, to the city walls, to other temples, 
had been attended with unusual discomfort. To go at all, 
we should have to travel at night and rest during the day. 
This consideration decided General Grant. His journey 
would be not alone to see the Great Wall, but the people 
in the interior, and especially to have a glimpse of Tartary. 
Travel by night would prevent this, and so we gave up the 
journey. 

But to come to China and not see the Great Wall 
would have subjected us to adverse criticism for the re- 
mainder of our lives. Consequently there was a relief to 
our susceptibilities when we were told that the Great Wall 
came to an end on the sea-coast on our way to Chefoo, and 
with a favoring sea we could run up and go on shore. This 
was resolved upon, and soon the Richmond steamed slowly 
up the coast, the Ashuelot going direct to Chefoo. The 
contrast between the Richmond and the modest little Ash- 
uelot was marked, and we had a sense of abundant space, 
of roominess, of opportunities for walking. But the Ash- 
uelot is a well-commanded ship, and we left her with 
pleasant memories, and it was not without a regret that we 
saw General Grant's flag hauled down. It was our good 



AROUND THE WORLD. 745 

fortune to have a smooth sea, and when the morning came 
we found ourselves steaming slowly along the shores of 
Northern China lining the horizon. Navigation in the 
China seas is always a problem, and the coast past which 
we are sailing is badly surveyed. As a general thing, so 
carefully has science mapped and tracked the ocean, that 
you have only to seek counsel from a vagrant, wandering 
star, and you will be able to tell to the minute when some 
hill or promontory will rise out of the waves. There was 
no such comfort on the China coast, and the Richmond had 
to feel her way, to grope along the coast, and find the Great 
Wall as best we could. While cree23ing uj) the Chinese 
coast we were always on the watch for junks, but never ran 
one down. It was trying, however, to naval patience, and 
we found it so much better to be alone on the sea and look 
for our Great Wall as well as we could, undisturbed by 
the heedlessness of Chinese mariners. 

About two o'clock in the afternoon, Lieutenant Sj)erry, 
the navigator, had an experience that must have reminded 
him of Columbus discovering America. He had found the 
Great Wall. By careful looking through the glasses, in 
time we saw it — a thick, brown, irregular line that 
crumbles into the sea. The Richmond steamed towards the 
beach, and so gracious was the weather that we were able 
to anchor within a mile of shore. All the boats were let 
down, and as many as could be spared from the vessel 
went ashore — the captain, the officers, sailors in their blue, 
tidy uniforms, and an especial sailor with a pot of white 
paint to inscribe the fact that the Richmond had visited 
the Great Wall. The Great Wall is the only monument I 
have seen which could be improved by modern sacrilege, 
and which could be painted over and plastered without 
compunctions of conscience. From what I read of this 
stupendous achievement it was built under the reign of 



746 GRANT'S TOUR 

a Cliinese Emperor who flourished two centuries before 
Christ. This EmjDeror was disturbed by the constant in- 
vasion of the Tartars, a hardy nomadic race, who came 
from the hills of Mongolia and plundered his people, who 
were indeed afterwards to come, if only the Emperor could 
have opened the book of fate . and known, and rule the 
country and found the dynasty which exists after a fashion 
still. So His Majesty resolved to build a wall which should 
forever protect his emj)ire from the invader. The wall was 
built, and so well was it done that here we come, wanderers 
from the antipodes, twenty centuries after, and find it a 
substantial, imposing, but, in the light of modern science, a 
useless wall. It is 1250 miles in length, and it is only 
when you consider that distance, and the incredible amount 
of labor it imposed, that the magnitude of the work breaks 
upon you. • 

We landed on a smooth, pebbly beach, studded with 
shells, which would have rejoiced the eyes of children. 
We found a small village, and saw the villagers grinding 
corn. The children, a few beggars, and a blind person 
came to welcome us. The end of the wall which juts into 
the sea has been beaten by the waves into a ragged, shape- 
less condition. There was an easy ascent, however, up 
stone steps. At the top there was a small temj^le, evi- 
dently given to pious uses still, for there was a keeper who 
dickered about letting us in, and the walls seemed to be in 
order, clean and painted. The wall at the site of the 
temple was seventy-five or a hundred feet wide, but this 
was only a special width to accommodate the temple and 
present an imposing presence to the sea. As far as we 
could see, the wall stretched over hill and valley, until it 
became a line. Its average width at the surface is from 
twenty to twenty-five feet. At the base it varies from forty 
to a hundred feet. It is made of stone and brick, and, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 747 

considering that twenty centuries have been testing its 
workmanship, the work was well done. 

As a mere wall, there is nothing imposing about the 
Great Wall of China. There are a hundred thousand 
walls, the world over, better built and more useful. What 
impressed us was the infinite patience which could have 
compassed so vast a labor. Wonderful are the Pyramids, 
and wonderful as a dream the ruins of Thebes. There 
you see mechanical results which you cannot follow or 
solve, engineering achievements we could not even now 
repeat. The Great Wall is a marvel of patience. I had 
been reading the late Mr. Seward's calculation that the 
labor which had builded the Great Wall would have built 
the Pacific Railways. General Grant thought that Mr. 
Seward had underrated its extent. " I believe," he said, 
"that the labor exj^ended on this wall could have built 
every railroad in the United States, every canal and high- 
way, and most, if not all, of our cities." The story is that 
millions were employed on the wall ; that the work lasted 
for ten years. I have ceased to wonder at a story like this. 
In the ancient days — the days which our good people are 
always lamenting, and a return to which is the prayer of 
so many virtuous and pious souls — in the ancient days, 
when an emperor had a wall or a pyramid to build, he sent 
out to the fields and hills and gathered in the j^eople and 
made them build on peril of their heads. It required an 
emj)eror to build the Great Wall. No people would have 
ever done such a thing. When you see the expression of 
a people's power, it is in the achievements of the Koman, 
the Greek, and the Englishman — in the achievements of 
Chinamen when they have been allowed their own way. 
The Great Wall is a monument of the patience of a peo- 
ple, and the misapplied prerogative of a king. It never 
could have been of much use in the most primitive days, 



748 GRANT'S TOUR 

and now it is only a curiosity. We walked about on the 
top and studied its simjDle, massive workmanship, and 
looked upon the plains of Mongolia, over which the 
dreaded Tartar came. On one side of the wall w^as China, 
on the other Mongolia. We were at the furthest end of 
our journey, and every step now would be towards home. 
There was something like a farewell in the feeling with 
which we looked upon the cold land of mystery which 
swept on towards the north — cold and barren even under 
the warm sunshine. There was something like a welcome 
in the waves as we again greeted them, and knew that the 
sea u|)on which we are again venturing, with the confidence 
that comes from long and friendly association, would carry 
us home to America, and lighten even that journey with a 
glimpse of the land of the rising sun. 

At five in the afternoon we were under way. The ocean 
was smooth and settled into a dead calm — a blessing not 
always vouchsafed in the China seas. We ran along all 
night across the gulf, and early in the morning found our- 
selves at Chefoo. Judge Denny had gone ahead, Chefoo 
being within his consular jurisdiction, to see that all prep- 
arations were made for the reception of General Grant. 
Chefoo is a port, a summer watering-place for the Euro- 
pean residents of Shanghai and Tientsin. It is situated 
on the northern "side of the Shantung promontory, in lati- 
tude 37 deg. 35 min. 6Q sec. north and longitude 124 deg. 
22 min. 33 sec. east. Chefoo does not present an interest- 
ing apjDearance from the sea. The hills rise and form a 
moderate background to the horizon, and on the hill was 
a group of commodious houses, showing that the European 
had put his foot here and was seeking the summer winds. 
Chefoo was opened for trade in 1861, as one of the results 
of the French and English expedition against Pekin. The 
province of Shantung, of which Chefoo is the open port, 



AROUND THE WORLD. 749 

was for a long time one of the out-of-the-way provinces of 
China. It is famous for its climate. The health-seeking 
foreigner has discovered the dryness of its atmosphere, the 
cool breezes which temper the jDitiless summer rays — the 
firm, bracing winds, which bring strength with the winter. 
As Europeans come more and more to China, Chefoo grows 
in value, and in addition there is a trade especially in the 
bean-pancake, which gives it a mercantile vitality. The 
bean-pancake is used as a fertilizer all over China, and is 
made by throwing peas in a trough, and crushing them 
under a heavy stone wheel. The oil is pressed out, and 
what remains goes into the fields to give new life to the 
wheat and tea. You can have an idea of the extent of 
this trade when you know that in 1877 the amount of 
beans and of bean-cake exported was more than a hundred 
million pounds. There is a good trade in cotton, and the 
position which the town holds towards Japan, Corea, and 
the Pacific settlements of the Russian Empire, insure 
Chefoo a commercial prominence on the China seas. In 
winter, when the Peiho Kiver is frozen and communication 
with Pekin is interrupted, Chefoo assumes new import- 
ance as the seaport of Northern China. 

The bay when we came was studded with junks, which 
were massed close to the shore. A fleet of gun-boats was 
drawn up near the landing and were streaming with flags 
on account of the arrival. We landed about eleven, and 
the barge made a detour through the fleet. The vessels all 
fired salutes, and the point of debarkation was tastefully 
decorated. The General and Mrs. Grant on landing were 
met by Consul Denny, the Vice-Consul ; Mr. C. L. Simp- 
son, the Commissioner of Customs, and all the foreign res- 
idents. The General's party were escorted to a small joa- 
vilion, where presentations took place to the ladies and 
gentlemen present. From here there was a procession 



750 GRANT'S TOUR 

about a quarter of a mile to the house of the Vice-Consul- 
The foreign settlement and the Custom-House buildings 
were decorated. Chinese troops from the Viceroy's army 
were drawn up on both sides of the road. A temporary 
arch was erected, in which the American and Chinese flags 
were intertwined. Mounted Chinese officers rode ahead 
and the General followed after in a chair carried by eight 
bearers. The people of the Chinese town had turned out, 
and amid the firing of cannon, the playing of Chinese 
music, and ih.Q steady, stolid, inquiring gaze of thousands, 
we were carried to the Consulate. Here there was lunch- 
eon. After luncheon. General Grant strolled about the 
town, and in the evening attended a dinner at the house 
of the Customs Commissioner, Mr. Simpson. At the end 
of the dinner there was a ball, attended by most of the of- 
ficers of the Richmond and the Asheulot and the principal 
residents. There were fireworks, lanterns, and illumina- 
tions, and the little conservative town had quite a holiday. 
At midnight General Grant and party, accompanied 
by Captain Benham, returned on board the Richmond. 
There was one incident on the return of a novel and pic- 
turesque character. According to the regulations of the 
American navy, no salutes can be fired by men-of-war after 
the sun goes down. But the Richmond was to sail as soon 
as the General embarked, and before the sun arose would 
be out at sea. So the Chinese gun-boats sent word that 
they would fire twenty-one guns as General Grant passed 
in his barge. The announcement caused some consterna- 
tion in the well-ordered minds of our naval friends, and 
there was a grave discussion as to what regulations per- 
mitted under the circumstances. It would be rude to 
China not to return her salute. There were especial rea- 
sons for going out of the way to recognize any honor shown 
us by the Chinese. Our mission in those lands, so far as 



AROUND THE WORLD. 751 

it was a mission, was one of peace and courtesy and good- 
will. Captain Benliam, with the ready ability and com- 
mon sense w^hich, as a naval officer, he possesses in an 
eminent degree, decided that the courtesy should be hon- 
ored and answered, gun for gun, and that, in so doing, he 
would carry out, in spirit at least, the regulations which 
should govern a naval commander. So it came to pass that 
Lieutenant-Commander Clarke found himself performing a 
duty which I suppose never before devolved upon a naval 
officer, holding a midnight watch, with the gun-crew at 
quarters ready for the signal which was to justify him in 
startling the repose of nature on sea and* shore with the 
hoarse and lurid menace of his guns. General Grant's 
launch had hardly moved before the Chinese gun-boats 
thundered forth, gun after gun, their terrifying comjDli- 
ment. These boats have no saluting batteries, and as the 
guns fired were of heavy calibre, the effect of the fire was 
startling and sublime. The General's launch slowly 
steamed on, the smoke of the guns rolling along the sur- 
face of the waves and clouding the stars. When the last 
gun was fired there was a pause, and far off in the dark- 
ness our vessel, like a phantom ship, silent and brooding, 
suddenly took life, and a bolt of fire came from her bows, 
followed swiftly by the sullen roar of the guns. 

So it came to pass that at midnight, in fire and flame — 
the angry echoes leaping from shore to shore and from hill 
to hill, and over the tranquil waters of a whispering sea — 
we said farewell to China and sailed towards Japan. 

There was no special incident in our run from China. 
On the morning of the 21st of June, we found ourselves 
threading our way through beautiful islan^ds and rocks rich 
with green, that stood like sentinels in the sea, and hills on 
which were trees and gardens, and high, commanding cliffs 
covered with green, and smooth, tranquil waters, into the 



752 GRANT'S TOUR 

Bay of Nagasaki. Nagasaki ranks among the beautiful 
harbors in the world. But the beauty that welcomed us 
had the endearing quality that it reminded us of home. 
All these weeks we had been in the land of the palm, and 
we were now again in the land of the pine. 

The Bichmond steamed between the hills and came to 
an anchorage. It was the early morning, and over the 
water were shadows of cool, inviting green. Nagasaki, 
nestling on her hillsides, looked cosy and beautiful, and, it 
being our first glimj^se of a Japanese town, we studied it 
through our glasses, studied every feature — the scenery, 
the picturesque attributes of the city, the terraced hills that 
rose beyond, every rood under cultivation ; the quaint, 
curious houses ; the multitudes of flags which showed that 
the town knew of our coming and was preparing to do us 
honor. We noted also that the wharves were lined with a 
multitude, and that the available population were waiting 
to see the guest whom their nation honors, and who is known 
in common speech as the American Mikado. Then the 
Bichmond ran up the Japanese standard and fired twenty- 
one guns in honor of Japan. The forts answered the 
salute. Then the Japanese gun-boat-s and the forts dis- 
played the American ensign and fired a salute of twenty- 
one guns in honor of General Grant. Mr. W. P. Man- 
gum, our Consul, and his wife came on board. In a short 
time the Japanese barge was seen coming, with Prince 
Dati and Mr. Yoshida and the Governor, all in the s|)len- 
dor of court uniforms. These ofiicials were received with 
due honors and escorted to the cabin. Prince Dati said 
that he had been commanded by the Emperor to meet 
General Grant on his landing, to welcome him in the name 
of His Majesty, and to attend upon him as the Emperor's 
personal representative so long as the General remained in 
Japan. The value of this compliment can be understood 



AROUND THE WORLD. 753 

when you know that Prince Dati is one of the highest 
noblemen in Japan. He was one of the leading daimios, 
one of the old feudal barons who, before the revolution, 
ruled Japan and had powers of life and death in his own 
dominions. The old daimios were not only barons, but 
heads of clans, like the clans of Scotland, and in the feudal 
days he could march an army into the field. When the 
revolution came Dati accepted it, not sullenly and seeking 
retirement, like Satsuma and other princes, but as the best 
thing for the country. He gave his adhesion to the Em- 
peror, and is now one of the great noblemen around the 
throne. The sending of a man of the rank of the Prince 
was the highest compliment that the Emperor could pay 
any guest. Mr. Yoshida you know as the present Japanese 
Minister to the United States, a discreet and accomplished 
man, and among the rising statesmen in the EmjDire. Hav- 
ing been accredited to America during the General's ad- 
ministration, and knowing the General, the Government 
called him home so that he might attend General Grant 
and look after the reception. So when General Grant ar- 
rived, he had the pleasure of meeting not only a distin- 
guished representative of the EmjDcror, but an old personal 
friend. 

At one o'clock on the 21st of June, General Grant, ac- 
companied by Prince Dati, Mr. Yoshida, and the Gov- 
ernor, landed in Nagasaki. The Japanese man-of-war 
Kango, commanded by Captain Zto, had been sent down 
to Nagasaki to welcome the General. The landing took 
place in the Japanese barge. From the time that General 
Grant came into the waters of Japan, it was the intention 
of the Government that he should be the nation's guest. 
As soon as the General stej^ped into the barge, the Japanese 
vessels and the batteries on shore thundered out their wel- 
come, the yards of the vessels were manned ; and as the 



754 GRANT'S TOUR 

barge moved slowly along, the crews of tlie sKips in the 
harbor cheered. It was over a mile from the Richmond to 
the shore. The landing-place had been arranged not in 
the foreign section nor the Dutch concession, carrying out 
the intention of having the reception entirely Japanese. 
Lines of troops were formed, the steps were covered with 
red cloth, and every space and standing spot and coigne 
of vantage was covered with people. The General's boat 
touched the shore, and with Mrs. Grant on his arm, and 
followed by the Colonel, the Japanese officials, and the 
members of his party, he slowly walked up the platform, 
bowing to the multitude who made this obeisance in his 
honor. There is something strange in the grave decorum 
of an Oriental crowd ; strange to us who remember the 
ringing cheer and the electric hurrah of Saxon lands. The 
principal citizens of Nagasaki came forward and were pre- 
sented, and, after a few minutes' pause, our party stepped 
into jinrickshaws and were taken to our quarters. 

The jinrickshaw is the common vehicle of Japan. It 
is built on the principle of a child's perambulator or an in- 
valid's chair, except that it is much lighter. Two men go 
ahead and pull, and one behind pushes ; but this only on 
occasions of ceremony. One man is quite able to manage 
a jinrickshaw. Those used by the General had been sent 
down from Tokio, from the palace. Our quarters in Na- 
gasaki had been prepared in the JajDanese town. A build- 
ing used for a female normal school had been prepared. It 
was a half mile from the landing, and the whole road had 
been decorated with flags, American and Japanese entwined, 
with arches of green boughs and flowers. Both sides of 
the road were lined with people, who bowed low to the 
General as he passed. On reaching our residence, the 
Japanese officials of the town were all presented. Then 
came the foreign Consuls in a body, who were presented by 



AROUND THE WORLD 755 

the American Consul, Mr. Mangiim. After this came the 
officers of the Japanese vessels, all in uniform. Then came 
a delegation representing the foreign residents of all nation- 
alties in Nagasaki, who asked to present an address. This 
address was read by Mr. Farber, one of the oldest foreign 
residents in Japan. The General responded in his usual 
quiet and agreeable manner. 

On the evening of June 22d, Mr. Bingham, the Amer- 
ican Minister to Japan, came to Nagasaki in the mail- 
steamer, and was met on landing by General Grant. The 
Minister was fresh from home. And it was pleasant, not 
only to meet an old friend, but one who could tell us of 
the tides and currents in home afairs. There were dinners 
and fetes during our stay in Nagasaki, some of which I 
may dwell on more in detail. The Governor of the prov- 
ince gave a State dinner on the evening of the 23d of 
June, served in French fashion ; one that in its details 
would have done no discredit to the restaurants in Paris. 
To this dinner the Governor asked Captain Benham, of 
the Richmond ; Commander Johnson, of the Ashuelot, 
and Lieutenant-Commander Clarke. At the close, His 
Excellency Utsumi Tadakatsu arose and said : — 

General Grant and Gentlemen. — After a two years' tour 
through many lands, Nagasaki has been honored by a visit from 
the ex- President of the United States. Nagasaki is situated oa 
the western shore of this Smpire, and how fortunate it is that I, 
in my official capacity as Governor of Nagasaki, can greet and 
welcome you, sir, as you land for the first time on the soil of 
Japan. Many years ago, honored sir, I learned to appreciate 
your great services, and during a visit to the United States I 
was filled with an ardent desire to learn more of your illustrious 
deeds. You were then the President of the United States, and 
little then did I anticipate that I should be the first Governor to 
receive you in Japan. Words cannot express my feelings. Na- 
gasaki is so far from the seat of government that I fear you caa- 

44 



756 GRANT'S TOUR 

not have matters arranged to your satisfaction. It is my earnest 
wish that you and Mrs. Grant may safely travel through Japan, 
and enjoy the visit. 

This address was spoken in Japanese. At its close an 
interpreter, who stood behind His Excellency during its 
delivery, advanced and read the above translation. When 
the Governor finished. General Grant arose and said : — 

Your Excellency, Ladies akd Gentlemen. — You have 
here to-night several Americans- who have the talent of speech, 
and who could make an eloquent response to the address in which 
my health is proposed. I have no such gift, and I never lamented 
its absence more than now, when there is so much that I want to 
say about your country, your people, and your progress. I have 
not been an inattentive observer of that progress, and in America 
we have been favored with accounts of it from my distinguished 
friend, whom you all know as the friend of Japan, and whom it 
was my privilege to send as Minister — I mean Judge Bingham. 
The spirit which has actuated the mission of Judge Bingham — 
the spirit of sympathy, support, and conciliation — not only ex- 
pressed my own sentiments, but those of America. America has 
much to gain in the East — no nation has greater interests — but 
America has nothing to gain except what comes from the cheer- 
ful acquiescence of the Eastern people, and insures them as much 
benefit as it does us. I should be ashamed of my country if its 
relations with other nations, and especially with these ancient 
and most interesting empires in the East, were based upon any 
ether idea. We have rejoiced over your progress. We have 
watched you step by step. We have followed the unfolding of 
your old civilization, and its absorbing the new. You have had 
our profound sympathy in that work, our sj^mpathy in the troubles 
which came with it, and our friendship. I hope it may continue 
— that it may long continue. As I have said, America has great 
interests in the East. She is your next neighbor. She is more 
aff'eeted by the Eastern populations than any other Power. She 
can never be insensible to what is doing here. Whatever her in- 
fluence may be, I am proud to think that it has always been ex- 
erted in behalf of justice and kindness. No nation needs from 



AROUND THE WORLD. 757 

the outside Powers justice and kindness more than Japan, because 
the work that has made such marvellous progress in the past few 
years is a work in which we are deeply concerned, in the success 
of which we see a new era in civilization, and which we should 
encourage. I do not know, gentlemen, that I can say anything 
more than this in response to the kind words of the Governor. 
Judge Bingham can speak with much more eloquence, and much 
more authority as our Minister. But I could not allow the occa- 
sion to pass without saying how deeply I sympathized with Japan 
in her efforts to advance, and how much those efforts were ap- 
preciated in America. In that spirit I ask you to unite with me 
in a sentiment — "The prosperity and the independence of Japan." 

General Grant then proposed the health of Judge 
Bingham, which called forth a pleasing response from 
that gentleman. 

On the 24th, a grand dinner was given the visitors. 
The bill of fare was almost a volume, and embraced over 
fifty courses. The wine was served in unglazed porcelain 
wine-cups, on white wooden stands. The appetite was 
pamj)ered in the beginning with dried fish, edible seaweeds, 
and isinglass, in something of the Scandinavian style, ex- 
cept that the attempt did not take the form of brandy and 
raw fish. The first serious dish was composed of crane, 
seaweed, moss, rice, bread, and potatoes, which we picked 
over in a curious way as though we were at an auction sale 
of remnants, anxious to rummage out a bargain. The 
soup, when it first came, — for it came many times, — was 
an honest soup of fish, like a delicate fish-chowder. Then 
came strange dishes, as ragout and as soup in bewildering 
coi;ifusion. The first was called namasu and embodied fish, 
clams, chestnuts, rock-mushrooms, and ginger. Then, in 
various combinations, the following : — Duck, trufiles, tur- 
nips, dried bonito, melons, pressed salt, aromatic shrubs, 
snipe, egg-plant, jelly, boiled rice, snapper, shrimp, pota- 
toes, mushroom, cabbage, lassfish, orange flowers, powdered 



758 GRANT'S TOUR 

fish, flavored with plum-juice and walnuts, raw carp sliced, 
mashed fish, baked fish, isinglass, fish boiled with pickled 
beans, wine, and rice again. This all came in the first 
course, and as a finale to the course, there was a sweetmeat 
composed of white and red bean jelly-cake, and boiled black 
mushroom. With this came powdered tea, which had a 
green, monitory look, and suggested your early experiences 
in medicine. 

While our hosts are passing around the strange dishes, 
a signal is made,' and the musicians enter. They are maid- 
ens, with fair, pale faces and small, dark, serious eyes. You 
are pleased to see that their teeth have not been blackened, 
as was the custom in past days, and is even now almost a 
prevalent custom among the lower classes. We are told 
that the maidens who have come to grace our feast are not 
of the common singing-class, but the daughters of the mer- 
chants and leading citizens of Nagasaki. The first group 
is composed of three. They enter, sit down on the floor 
and bow their heads in salutation. One of the instruments 
is shaped like a guitar, another is something between a 
banjo and a drum. They wear the costume of the country, 
the costume that was known before the new days came upon 
Japan. They have blue silk gowns, white collars, and 
heavily brocaded pearl-colored sashes. The principal in- 
strument was long and narrow, shaped like a cofiin-lid, and 
sounding like a harpsichord. After they had played an 
overture, another group entered, fourteen maidens similarly 
dressed, each carrying the small banjo-like instrument, and 
ranging themselves on a bench against the wall, the tajDCstry 
and silks suspended over them. Then the genius of the 
artist was apparent, and the rich depending tapestry, blended 
with the blue and white and j^earl, and animated with the 
faces of the maidens, their music, and their songs, made a 
picture of Japanese life which an artist might regard with 



AROUND THE WORLD. 759 

envy. You see then the delicate features of Japanese deco- 
ration which have bewitched our artist friends, and which 
the most adroit fingers in vain try to copy. When the 
musicians enter, the song begins. It is an original com- 
position. The theme is the glory of America, and honor 
to General Grant. They sing of the joy that his coming 
has given to Japan, of the interest and the pride they take 
in his fame ; of their friendship for their friends across the 
great sea. This is all sung in Japanese, and we follow the 
lines through the mediation of a Japanese friend who learned 
his English in America. This anthem was chanted in a 
low, almost monotonous key, one singer leading in a kind 
of solo, and the remainder coming in with a chorus. The 
song ended, twelve dancing-maidens enter. They wore a 
crimson-like overgarment, fashioned like pantaloons — a 
foot or so too long — so that when they walked it was with 
a dainty pace, lest they might trip and fall. The director 
of this group was constantly on his hands and knees, creep- 
ing around among the dancers, keeping their drapery in 
order, not allowing it to bundle up and vex the play. These 
maidens carried bouquets of pink blossoms, artificially made, 
examples of the flora of Japan. They stepped through 
the dance at as slow a measure as in a minuet of Louis 
XIV. The movement of the dance was simple, the music 
a humming thrumming, as though the perfoi'mers Avere 
tuning their instruments. After passing through a few 
measures, the dancers slowly filed out, and were followed 
by another group, who came wearing masks — the mask 
m the form of a large doll's face — and bearing children's 
rattles and fans. The peculiarity of this dance was that 
time was kept by the movement of the fan — a graceful, 
expressive movement which only the Eastern peo2:)le have 
learned to bestow on the fan. With them the fan becomes 
almost an organ of speech, and the eye is employed in its 



760 GRANT'S TOUR. 

management, at the expense of the admiration we are apt 
at home to bestow on other features of the amusement. 
The masks indicated that this was a humorous dance, and 
when it was over, four special performers, who had unusual 
skill, came jn with flowers and danced a pantomime. Then 
came four others, with costumes different — blue robes, 
trimmed with gold, who carried long, thin wands, entwined 
in gold and red, from which dangled festoons of pink blos- 
soms The dinner came to an end after a struggle 

of six or seven hours, and as we drove home through the 
illuminated town, brilliant with lanterns and fireworkSj and 
arches and bonfires, it was felt that we had been honored 
by an entertainment such as we may never again expect 
to see. 



CHAPTEE XL. 

AEEIVAL AT YOKOHAMA HONORS TO GENERAL GRANT 

WELCOME AT TOKIO THE GENERAl's RESIDENCE THE 

RECEPTION THE IMPERIAL PALACE AND COURT THE 

EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF JAPAN THE ROYAL AD- 
DRESS OF WELCOME THE RESPONSE CELEBRATING 

FOURTH OF JULY A GRAND REVIEW AN IMPERIAL 

BREAKFAST THE EMPEROR VISITS GENERAL GRANT 

AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION GENERAL GRANT's 

ADVICE CONCERNING THE LOOCHOO QUESTION EDU- 
CATION IN JAPAN. 

Of the visit to Yokoliama, the correspondent, of the 
New York Herald thus writes : — Yokohama has a beauti- 
ful harbor, and the lines of the city can be traced along 
the green background. The day was clear and warm — 
a home July day tempered with the breezes of the sea. 
There were men-of-war of various nations in the harbor, 
and as the exact hour of the General's coming was known, 
everybody was on the lookout. At ten o'clock, our Japan- 
ese convoy passed ahead and entered the harbor. At half- 
past ten, the Richmond steamed slowly in, followed by the 
Ashuelot. As soon as the Monongahela made out our 
flag, and especially the flag at the fore, which denoted the 
General's presence, her guns rolled out a salute. For a 
half-hour the bay rang with the roar of cannon, and was 
clouded with smoke. The Richmond fired a salute to the 
flag of Japan. The Japanese vessels, the French, the Rus- 
sian, all fired gun after gun. Then came the official visits. 
Admiral Patterson and staff, the admirals and commaiiding 
officers of other fleets, Consul-General Van Buren, officers 

761 



762 GRANT'S TOUR 

of the Japanese navy, blazing in uniform ; the officers of 
the Richmond were all in full uniform, and for an hour 
the deck of the flagship was a blaze of color and decora- 
tion. General Grant received the various dignitaries on 
the deck as they arrived. 

It was arranged that General Grant should land at 
noon. The foreign residents were anxious that the land- 
ing should be on the foreign concession, but the Japanese 
preferred that it should be in their own part of the city. 
At noon the imperial barge and the steam-launch came 
alongside the Richmond. General Grant, accompanied 
by Mrs. Grant, his son. Prince Dati, Judge Bingham, Mr. 
Yoshida, Caj^tain Benham, Commander Johnson, Lieuten- 
ant Stevens, Dr. Bransford, Lieutenant May, and Paymaster 
Thomson — the naval officer specially detailed to accom- 
pany him — passed over the side and went on the barge. 
As soon as General Grant entered the barge, the Richmond 
manned yards and fired a salute. In an instant, as if by 
magic, the Japanese, the French, the Russians manned 
yards and fired salutes. The German ship hoisted the 
imperial standard, and the English vessel dressed ship. 
Amid the roar of cannon and the waving of flags, the 
General's boat slowly moved to the shore. As he passed 
each of the saluting ships, the General took ofl" his hat and 
bowed, while the guards presented arms and the bands 
played the American national air. 

It was rather a long way to the Admiralty pier, but 
at half-past twelve the General's boat came to the wharf. 
There in waiting were the princes, ministers, and the high 
officials of the Japanese Government. As the General 
landed, the Japanese band played the American airs, and 
Iwakura, one of the prime ministers, and perhaps the fore- 
most statesman in Japan, advanced and shook his hands. 
The General had known Iwakura in America, and the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 763 

greeting was that of old friends. There were also Ito, 
Inomoto, and Tereshima, also members of the Cabinet ; two 
princes of the imperial family, and a retinue of officials. 
Mr. Yoshida presented the General and j)arty to the Jap- 
anese, and a few nioments were spent in conversation. 
Day fireworks were set off at the moment of the landing 
— representations of the American and Japanese flags 
entwined. That, however, is the legend that greets you 
at every doorsill — the two flags entwined. The General 
and j)arty, accompanied by the ministers and officials and 
the naval officers, drove to the railway-station. There was 
a special train in waiting, and at a quarter-past one the 
party started for Tokio. 

The ride to Tokio, the capital of Japan, was a little less 
than an hour, over a smooth road, and through a jDleasant, 
well-cultivated, and ajDparently prosperous country. Our 
train being special' made no stoppage, but I observed, as 
we passed the stations, that they were clean and neat, and 
that the people had assembled to wave flags and bow as we 
whirled past. About two o'clock our train entered the sta- 
tion. A large crowd was in waiting, mainly the merchants 
and principal citizens of Tokio. As the General descended 
from the train, a committee of the citizens advanced and 
read an address, to which the General made a very pleas- 
ing reply. 

At the close of the address, the General was led to his 
carriage — the private carriage of the EmjDcror. As he 
stepped out, several Japanese officials met him; among 
others was His Excellency J. Pope Hennessy, the British 
Governor of Hong Kong, whose guest the General had been. 
The General shook hands warmly with the Governor, wlio 
said he came as a British subject to be among those who 
welcomed General Grant to Japan. The General's car- 
riage drove slowly in, surrounded by cavalry, through lines 



764 GRANT'S TOUR 

of infantry presenting arms, through a dense mass of peo- 
ple, under an arch of flowers and evergreens, until, amid 
the flourish of trumpets and the beating of drums, he de- 
scended at the house that had been prepared for his recep- 
tion — the Emperor's summer palace of Eurio Kwan. This 
is a low, one-story building, with wings. The main build- 
ing is a series of reception-rooms, in various styles of dec- 
oration, notably Japanese. There are eight diflerent rooms 
in all, in any one of which you may receive your friends. 
General Grant uses the small room to the left of the hall 
as you enter. On ceremonial occasions he uses the main 
saloon, which extends one-half the length of the palace. 
Here a hundred people could be entertained with ease. 
This room is a beautiful specimen of Japanese decorative 
art, and you never become so familiar with it that there are 
not constant surprises in the way of color or form or de- 
sign. Each of the rooms is decorated diflerently from the 
others. The apartments of General Grant and party are 
in one wing, the dining-room, billiard-room, and the apart- 
ments of the Japanese officials in attendance, in the other 
wing. Around the palace is a veranda, with growing flow- 
ers in profusion, and swinging lanterns. The beauty of 
the palace is not in its architecture, which is plain and 
inexpressive, but in the taste which marks the most minute 
detail of decoration, and in the arrangement of the grounds. 

The Japanese, with a refinement of courtesy quite 
French in its way, were solicitous that General Grant 
should not have any special honors in Japan until he had 
seen the Emperor. It was felt that, as the General was the 
guest of the nation, he should be welcomed to the nation 
by its chief. 

The hour for our reception was two in the afternoon. 
The day was very warm, although in our palace on the 
sea we have whatever breeze may be wandering over the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 767 

Pacific Ocean. General Grant invited some of his naval 
friends to accompany him, and in answer to this invitation 
we had Rear Admiral Patterson, attended by Pay Inspector 
Thornton and Lieutenant Davenport, of his staff; Captain 
A. E. K. Benham, commanding the Richmond ; Captain 
Fitzhugh, commanding the Monongahela ; Commander 
Johnson, commanding the Ashuelot ; Lieutenant Springer 
and Lieutenant Kellogg. At half-past one Mr. Bingham, 
our Minister, arrived, and our party immediately drove to 
the palace. The home of the Emperor is a long distance 
from the home of the General. The old palace was de- 
stroyed by fire, and Japan has had so many things to do 
that she has not built a new one. 

We drove through the daimios' quarter and through 
the gates of the city. The first imj)ression of Tokio is 
that it is a city of walls and canals. The walls are crude 
and solid, protected by moats. We passed under the walls 
of an enclosure which was called the castle. Here w^e are 
told the Emperor will build his new palace. We crossed 
another bridge — I think there were a dozen altogether in 
the course of the drive — and came to a modest arched gate- 
way which did not look very imposing. Soldiers were drawn 
up and the band played Hail Columbia. Our carriages 
drove on past one or two modest buildings and drew up in 
front of another modest building, on the steps of which 
the Minister Iwakura was standing. The General and 
party descended and were cordially welcomed and escorted 
up a narrow stairway into an anteroom. 

When you have seen most of the available j)alaces in 
the world, from the glorious home of Aurungzebe to the 
depressing mighty cloister of the Escurial, you are sure to 
have preconceived notions of what a palace should be, and 
to expect something unique and grand in the home of the 
long hidden and sacred Majesty of Japan. The home of 



768 GRANT'S TOUR 

the Emj^eror was as simple as that of a country gentleman 
at home. What marked the house was its simplicity and 
taste ; qualities for which my palace education had not pre- 
pared me. Here we are in a suite of plain rooms, the ceil- 
ings of wood, the walls decorated with natural scenery — 
the furniture sufficient but not crowded — and exquisite in 
style and finish. There is no pretence of architectural 
emotion. The rooms are large, airy, with a sense of sum- 
mer about them which grows stronger as you look out of 
the window and down the avenues of trees. We are told 
that the grounds are spacious and fine, even for Japan, and 
that His Majesty, who rarely goes outside of his palace 
grounds, takes what recreation he needs within the walls. 

The palace is a low building, one or at most two stories 
in height. They do not build high walls in Japan, and 
especially in Tokio, where earthquakes are ordinary inci- 
dents, and the first question to consider in building up is 
how far you can fall. We enter a room where all the 
Ministers are assembled. The Japanese Cabinet is a fa- 
mous body, and tested by laws of physiognomy would com- 
pare with that of any Cabinet I have seen. The Prime 
Minister is a striking character. He is small, slender, 
with an almost girl-like figure, delicate, clean-cut, winning 
features, a face that might be that of a boy of twenty or a 
man of fifty. The other Ministers looked like strong, able 
men. Iwakura has a striking face, with lines showing, 
firmness and decision, and you saw the scar which marked 
the attempt of the assassin to cut him down and slay him, 
as Okubo, the greatest of Japanese statesmen, was slain not 
many months ago. That assassination made as deep an im- 
pression in Japan as the killing of Lincoln did in Amer- 
ica. We saw the spot where the murder was done on our 
way to the palace, and my Japanese friend who pointed it 
out spoke in low tones of sorrow and affection, and said 



AROUND THE WORLD. 769 

the crime there committed had been an irreparable loss to 
Japan. 

A lord in waiting, heavily braided, with a uniform that 
Louis XIV. would not have disliked in Versailles, comes 
softly in and makes a signal, leading the way. The Gen- 
eral and Mrs. Grant escorted by Mr. Bingham, and our 
retinue followed. The General and the Minister were in 
evening dress. The naval officers were in full uniform, 
Colonel Grant wearing the uniform of lieutenant-colonel. 
We walked along a short passage and entered another room, 
at the farther end of which were standing the Emperor 
and the Empress. Two ladies in waiting were near them 
in a sitting, what appeared to be a crouching, attitude. 
Two other princesses were standing. These were the only 
occui^ants of the room. Our party slowly advanced, the 
Japanese making a profound obeisance, bending the head 
almost to a right angle with the body. The royal princes 
formed in line near the Emperor, along with the princesses. 
The Emperor stood quite motionless, apparently unobserv- 
ant or unconscious of the homage that was paid him. He 
is a young man with a slender figure, taller than the aver- 
age Japanese, and of about the middle height, according to 
our ideas. The Empress, at his side, wore the Japanese 
costume, rich and plain. Her face was very white and her 
form slender and almost childlike. Her hair Avas combed 
plainly and braided with a gold arrow. The Emperor and 
Empress have agreeable faces, the Emperor especially 
showing firmness and kindness. The solemn etiquette that 
pervaded the audience-chamber was peculiar, and might 
'appear strange to those familiar with the stately but cordial 
manners of a European Court. But one must remember 
that the Emperor holds so high and so sacred a place in the 
traditioDs, the religion, and the political system of .Japan, 
that even the ceremony of to-day is so far in advance of 



770 GRANT'S TOUR 

anything of the kind ever known in Japan, that it might 
be called a revolution. The Emperor, for instance, as our 
group was formed, advanced and shook hands with the 
General. 

After he had shaken hands with the General, he re- 
turned to his place, and stood with his hand resting on 
his sword, looking on at the brilliant, embroidered, gilded 
comj^any as though unconscious of their presence. Mr. 
Bingham advanced and bowed, and received just the faint- 
est nod in recognition. The other members of the party 
were each presented by the Minister, and each one stand- 
ing about a dozen feet from the Emperor, stood and bowed. 
Then the General and Mrs. Grant were presented to the 
princesses, each party bowing to the other in silence. The 
Emperor then made a signal to one of the noblemen, who 
advanced. The Emperor spoke to him for a few moments, 
in a low tone, the nobleman standing with bowed head. 
When the Emperor had finished, the nobleman advanced 
to the General, and said he was commanded by His Majesty 
to read him the following address : — 

Your name has been known to ns for a long time, and we are 
highly gratified to see you. While holding the high office of 
President of the United States, you extended towards our coun- 
trymen especial kindness and courtesy; When our Ambassador, 
Iwakura, visited the United States, he received the greatest kind- 
ness from you. The kindness thus shown by you has always 
been remembered by us. In your travels around the world you 
have readied this country, and our people of all classes feel grati- 
fied and happy to receive you. We trust that, during your so- 
journ in our country, you may find much to enjoy. It gives me 
sincere pleasure to receive you, and we are especiallj^ gratified 
that we have been able to do so on the anniversary of American 
independence. We congratulate you, also, on the occasion. 

This address was read in English. At its close, Gen- 
eral Grant said : — 



AROUND THE WORLD. 771 

YoUE Majesty : — I am very grateful for the welcome you 
accord me here to-day, and for the great kindness with which I 
have been received, ever since I came to Japan, by your govern- 
ment and your people. I recognize in this a feeling of friendship 
towards my country. I can assure you that this feeling is recip- 
rocated by the United States ; that our people, without regard to 
party, take the deepest interest in all that concerns Japan, and 
have the warmest wishes for her welfare. I am happy to be able 
to express that sentiment. America is your next neighbor, and 
will always give Japan sympathy and support in her efforts to ad- 
vance. I again thank Your Majesty for your hospitality, and 
wish you a long and happy reign, and for your people prosperity 
and independence. 

At the conclusion of this address, which was extem- 
pore, the lord advanced and translated it to His Majesty. 
Then the Emperor made a sign and said a few words to 
the nobleman. He came to the side of Mrs. Grant, and 
said the Empress had commanded him to translate the fol- 
lowing address : — 

I congratulate you upon your safe arrival after your long 
journey. I presume you have seen very many interesting places. 
I fear you will find many things uncomfortable here, because the 
customs of the country are so different from other countries. I 
hope you will prolong your stay in Japan, and that the present 
warm days may occasion you no inconvenience. 

Mrs. Grant, pausing a moment, said in a low, conversa- 
tional tone of voice, with animation and feeling : — 

I thank you very much. I have visited many countries, and 
have seen many beautiful places, but I have seen none so beau- 
tiful or so charming as Japan. 

All day during the Fourth visitors poured in on the 
General. The reception of so many distinguished states- 
men and officials reminded one of state occasions at the 
White House. Princes of the imperial family, princesses, 



772 GRANT'S TOUR 

the members of the Cabinet, and citizens and high officials, 
naval officers, ministers and consuls, all came; and car- 
riages were constantly coming and going. In the evening 
there was a party at one of the summer-gardens, given by 
the American residents in honor of the Fourth of July. 
The General arrived at half-past eight, and was presented 
to the American residents by Mr. Bingham, the Minister. 
At the close of the presentation, Mr. Bingham made a brief 
but singularly eloquent address. Standing in front of the 
General and speaking in a low, measured tone of voice, 
scarcely above conversational pitch, the Minister, after 
words of welcome, said : — 

In common with all Americans we are not nnmindfal that in 
the supreme moment of our national trials, when our heavens 
were filled with darkness, and our habitations were filled with 
dead, you stood with our defenders in the forefront of the conflict, 
and with them, amid the consuming fires of battle, achieved the 
victory which brought deliverance to our imperilled country. 
To found a great commoiiwealth, or to save from overthrow a 
great commonwealth already founded, is considered to be the 
greatest of human achievements. If it was not your good fortune 
to aid Washington, first of Americans and foremost of men, and 
his peerless associates in founding the Eepublic ; it was given to 
you, above all others, to aid in the no less honorable work of 
saving the Republic from overthrow. Now that the sickle has 
fallen from the pale hand of Death on the field of mortal combat, 
and the places which but yesterday were blackened and blasted 
by war, have grown green and beautiful under the hand of peace- 
ful toil ; now that the Eepublic, one and undivided, is covered 
with the greatness of justice, protecting each by the combined 
power of all — men of every land and every tongue — the world, 
appreciating the fact that your civic and military services largely 
contributed to these results, so esseirtial not only to the interests 
of our own country, but to the interests of the human race, have 
accorded to you such honors as never before within the range of 
authentic history have been given to a living, untitled, and un- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 775 

official person. I may venture to say that this grateful recogni- 
tion of your services will not be limited to the present generation, 
or the present age, but will continue through all the ages. In 
conclusion I beg leave again to bid you welcome to Japan, and 
to express the wish that in health and prosperity you may return 
to your native land, the land which we all love so well. 

In response, General Grant said : — 

Ladies and Gentlemen. — I am unable to answer the elo- 
quent speech of Judge Bingham, as it is in so many senses per- 
sonal to myself. I can only thank him for his too flattering allu- 
sions to me personally, and the duty devolving on me during the 
late war. We had a great war. We had a trial that summoned 
forth the energies and patriotism of all our people — in the army 
alone over a million. In awarding credit for the success that 
crowned those efforts there is not one in that million, not one 
among the living or the dead, who did not do his share as I did 
mine, and who does not deserve as much credit. It fell to my 
lot to command the armies. There were many others who could 
have commanded the armies better. But I did my best, and we 
all did our best, and in the fact that it was a struggle on the part 
of the people for the Union, for the country, for a country for 
themselves and their children, we have the best assurances of 
peace, and the best reason for gratification over the result. We 
are strong and free because the people made us so. I trust we 
may long continue so. I think we have no issues, no questions 
that need give us embarrassment. I look forward to peace, to 
generations of peace, and with peace prosperity. I never felt 
more confident of the future of our country. It is a great 
countr}^ — a great blessing to us — and we cannot be too proud 
of it, too zealous for its honor, too anxious to develop its re- 
sources, and make it not only a home for our children, but for 
the worthy people of other lands. I am glad to meet j^ou here, 
and I trust that your labors will be prosperous, and that you will 
return home in health and happiness. I trust we may all meet 
again at home, and be able to celebrate our Fourth of July as 
pleasantly as we do to-night. 

Addresses were also made by Dr. McCartee and Gen- 



776 GRANT'S TOUR 

eral Van Buren. There were fireworks and feasting, and 
after the General and Mrs. Grant retired, which they did 
at midnight, there was dancing. It was well on to the 
morning before the members of the American colony in 
Tokio grew weary of celebrating the anniversary of our 
Declaration of Independence. 

The morning of the 7th of July was set apart by the 
Emperor for a review of the troops. The Emperor of 
Japan is fond of his army, and was more anxious to show 
it to General Grant than any other institution in the Em- 
pire. Great preparations had been made to have it in 
readiness, and all Tokio was out to see the pageant. The 
review of the army by the Emperor in itself is an event 
that causes a sensation. But the review of the army by 
the Emperor and the General was an event which had no 
precedent in Japanese history. The hour for the review 
was nine, and at half-past eight the clatter of horsemen 
and the sound of bugles were heard in the palace grounds. 
In a few moments the Emperor's state carriage drove up, 
the drivers in scarlet livery and the panels decorated with 
the imperial flower, the chrysanthemum. General Grant 
entered, accomj)anied by Prince Dati, and the cavalry 
formed a hollow square, and our procession moved on to 
the field at a slow pace. A drive of twenty minutes 
brought us to the j^arade-ground, a large ojDcn plain, the 
soldiers in line, and behind the soldiers a dense mass of 
people — men, women, and children. As the General's 
procession slowly turned into the parade-ground a grou23 
of Japanese officers rode up and saluted, the band played 
"Hail Columbia," and the soldiers presented arms. Two 
tents had been arranged for the reception of the guests. 
In the larger of the two we found assembled officers of 
state, representatives of foreign Powers, Governor Hen- 
nessy, of Hong Kong, all in bright, glowing uniforms. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 777 

The smaller tent was for tlie Emperor. When the Gen- 
eral dismounted he was met by the Minister of War and 
escorted into the smaller tent. In a few minutes the trum- 
pets gave token that the Emperor was coming, and the 
band played the Japanese national air. His Majesty was 
in a state carriage, surrounded with horsemen and accom- 
panied by one of his Cabinet. As the Emperor drove up 
to the tent. General Grant advanced to the carriage-steps 
and shook hands with him, and they entered and remained 
a few minutes in conversation. 

At the close of the review General Grant and party 
drove off the ground in state, and were taken to the Shila 
palace. This palace is near the sea, and as the grounds 
are beautiful and attractive, it was thought best that the 
breakfast to be given to General Grant by His Majesty 
should take place here. The Emperor received the Gen- 
eral and party in a large, plainly furnished room, and led 
the way to another room where the table was set. The 
decorations of the table were sumjDtuous and royal. Gen- 
eral Grant sat on one side of the Emperor, whose place was 
in the centre. Opposite was Mrs. Grant, who sat next to 
Prince Arinagawa, the nearest relative to the Emperor, and 
the commander-in-chief of the army. 

The Emperor conversed a great deal with General 
Grant through Mr. Yoshida, and also Governor Hennessy. 
His Majesty expressed a desire to have a private and friendly 
conference with the General, which it was arranged should 
take place after the General's return from Nikko. The 
feast lasted for a couple of hours, and the view from the 
table was charming. Beneath the window was a lake, and 
the banks were bordered with grass and trees. Cool winds 
came from the sea, and, although in the heart of a great 
capital, we were as secluded as in a forest. At the close 
of the breakfast, cigars were brought, and the company 



778 GRANT'S TOUR 

adjourned to another room. Mrs. Grant had a long con- 
versation with the princesses, and was charmed with their 
grace, their accomplishments, their simplicity, and their 
quiet, refined, Oriental beauty. At three o'clock the im- 
perial party withdrew, and we drove home to our palace by 
the sea. 

The Emperor's visit to General Grant is described as 
follows : — The day was very warm, and at half-past ten 
a message came that the Emperor had arrived and was 
awaiting the General in the little summer-house on the 
banks of the lake. The General, accompanied by Colonel 
Grant, Prince Dati, Mr. Yoshida and the writer, left the 
palace and proceeded to the summer-house. Colonel Grant 
wore the uniform of his rank ; the remainder of the party 
were in morning costume. We passed under the trees and 
towards the bridge. The im|)erial carriage had been hauled 
up under the shade of the trees and the horses taken out. 
The guards, attendants, cavalrymen, who had acconipanied 
the sovereign, were all seeking the shelter of the grove. 
We crossed the bridge and entered the summer-house. 
Preparations had been made for the Emperor, but they 
were very simple. Porcelain flower-pots, with flowers and 
ferns and shrubbery, were scattered about the room. One 
or two screens had been introduced. In the centre of the 
room was a table, with chairs around it. Behind one of 
the screens was another table, near the window, which 
looked into the lake. As the General entered, the Prime 
Minister and the Minister of the Imperial Household ad- 
vanced and welcomed him. Then, after a pause, we passed 
behind the screen and were in the presence of the Emjoe- 
K>r. His Majesty was standing before the table in undress 
uniform, wearing only the ribbon of his order. General 
Grant advanced, and the Emperor shook hands with him. 
To the ^est of the party he simply bowed. Mr. Yoshida 



AROUND THE WORLD. 779 

acted as interpreter. There was a pause, when the Empe- 
ror said : — 

I have heard of many of the things you have said to my 
Ministers in reference to Japan. You have seen the country and 
the people. I am anxious to speak with you on these subjects, 
and am sorry I have not had an opportunity earher. 

General Grant said he was entirely at the service of the 
Emperor, and was glad, indeed, to see him, and thank His 
Majesty for all the kindness he had received in Japan. He 
might say that no one outside of Japan had a higher interest 
in the country, or a more sincere friendship for its people. 

A very interesting conversation followed, during which 
General Grant said there was one thing about which he 
had an equal concern. When he was in China, he had 
been requested, by the Prince Regent and the Viceroy of 
Tientsin, to use his good offices with the Japanese Govern- 
ment on the question of Loochoo. The matter was one 
about which he would rather not have troubled himself, as 
it belonged to diplomacy and governments, and he was not 
a diplomatist, and not in government. At the same time 
he could not ignore a request made in the interest of peace. 
The General said he had read with great care, and had 
heard with attention, all the arguments on the Loochoo 
question from the -Chinese and Japanese sides. As to the 
merits of the controversy, it would be hardly becoming in 
him to express an opinion. He recognized the difficulties 
that surrounded Japan. But China evidently felt hurt and 
sore. She felt that she had not received the consideration 
due to her. It seemed to the General that His Majesty 
should strive to remove that feeling, even if in doing so 
it was necessary to make sacrifices. The General was 
thoroughly satisfied that China and Japan should make 
such sacrifices as would settle all questions between them, 
and become friends and allies, without consultation with 



780 GRANT'S TOUR 

foreign Powers. He liad urged this upon the Chinese 
Government, and he was glad to have the oj^portunity of 
saying the same to the Emperor. China and Japan are 
now the only two countries left in the great East of any 
power or resources of people to become great — that are 
even partially independent of Euro]3ean dictation and laws. 
The General wished to see them both advance to entire in- 
dependence, with the power to maintain it. Japan is rapidly 
approaching such a position, and China had the ability and 
the intelligence to do the same thing. 

The Prime Minister said that Japan felt the most 
friendly feelings towards China, and valued the friendship 
of that nation very highly, and would do what she could 
without yielding her dignity to preserve the best relations. 

General Grant said he could not speak too earnestly to 
the Emperor on this subject, because he felt earnestly. He 
knew of nothing that would give him greater pleasure than 
to be able to leave Japan, as he would in a very short time, 
feeling that between China and Japan there was entire 
friendship. Other counsels would be given to His Maj- 
esty, because there were ]30werful influences in the East 
fanning trouble between China and Japan. One could not 
fail to see these influences, and the General said he was 
profoundly convinced that any concession to them that 
would bring about war would bring unspeakable calamities 
to China and Japan. Such a war would bring in foreign 
nations, who would end it to suit themselves. The history 
of European diplomacy in the East was unmistakable on 
that point. What China and Japan should do is to come 
together without foreign intervention, talk over Loochoo 
and other subjects, and come to a complete and friendly 
understanding. They should do it between themselves, as 
no foreign Power can do them any good. 

General Grant spoke to His Majesty about the pleasurel 



* 

AROUND THE WORLD. 781 

lie had received from studying the educational institutions 
in Japan. He was surprised and pleased at the standing 
of these schools. He did not think there was a better 
school in the world than the Tokio school of engineering. 
He was glad to see the interest given to the study of Eng- 
lish. He approved of the bringing forward the young 
Japanese as teachers. In time Japan would be able to do 
without foreign teachers ; but changes should not be made 
too rapidly. 

At the conclusion of the conversation, which continued 
for two hours, General Grant said he would leave Japan 
with the warmest feelings of friendship towards the Em- 
peror and the people. He would never cease to feel a deep 
interest in their fortunes. He thanked the Emperor for 
his princely hospitality. Taking his leave, the General 
and party strolled back to the palace and His Majesty 
drove away to his own home in a distant part of the city. 



CHAPTER XLL 

HONORS AT TOKIO FAREWELL TO JAPAN EN ROUTE FOR 

SAN FRANCISCO PREPARATIONS FOR GRANT's RECEP- 
TION THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE STEAMER THE 

ENTRANCE OF THE CITY OF TOKIO THE LANDING 

THE mayor's ADDRESS OF WELCOME A GRAND PRO- 
CESSION A MAGNIFICENT SCENE AT THE PALACE 

HOTEL A GRAND CHORUS A CLAMORING PEOPLE 

GENERAL GRANT SPEAKS LATER HONORS A MARCH 

OF PEACE THE END OF A WONDERFUL JOURNEY. 

The visit of General Grant to Japan was marked by a 
series of demonstrations unparalleled in the history of that 
country. The entire nation was roused to enthusiasm by 
his presence. The citizens of Tokio and the capital expended 
upwards of $50,000 in entertainments. The Government 
officials exhausted every means of manifesting their re- 
spect and confidence. General Grant's visit will leave a 
marked and lasting impression upon the destinies of that 
Empire. The Emperor repeatedly visited General Grant 
to consult with him on public questions. General Grant's 
counsel throughout advises a firm spirit, independence, and 
absolute resistance to the aggressive policy pursued by many 
European representatives under the lead of Mr. Parkes, the 
British Minister. During his stay in the capital of Japan, 
General Grant's time was constantly held by native offi- 
cials, and he was obliged to decline all private hospitalities, 
the only exception being the acceptance of an entertain- 
ment at the residence of Mr. E. H. House, proprietor of 
the Tokio Times. The American Minister gave a dinner, 
and also the United States Consul-General at Yokohama. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 785 

The proposition was once entertained of stopping the City 
of Tokio at Honolulu, General Grant desiring to visit the 
Sandwich Islands. This being found impracticable, Ad- 
miral Patterson offered the steamship Monongahela for 
the voyage, but the arrangements for the departure had 
been already completed. 

The departure from Yokohama, which occurred on the 
3d of September, 1879, was attended with the most elab- 
orate ceremony, everything being done that the Japanese 
Government could devise in the way of honoring their dis- 
tinguished guest. When General Grant and suite left the 
Mikado's palace they were accompanied by the entire Cabi- 
net, and all the foreign Ministers. Troops lined the way 
to the station, and as the steamer passed out of the harbor, 
salutes thundered from every battery and from all the ves- 
sels in the bay. 

The voyage across the Pacific was a pleasant one. Gen- 
eral Grant passed the greater jjart of the time in reading, 
occasionally joining briefly in social conversation with his 
fellow-23assengers. 

Meanwhile extensive preparations were being made in 
San Francisco for the reception of the distinguished trav- 
eller. Although the City of Tokio was not due until the 
21st, the people began to look for its arrival as early as 
the 18th. The whole city was on the qui vive. A lookout 
was established to announce the first appearance of the in- 
coming steamer. At about mid-day, Saturday, Sej^tember 
20th, the steamer was sighted off " the Heads." The fact 
was at once telegraphed to the city. 

The first tap of the bell and the hoisting of the flag on 
the Merchants' Exchange, announcing the approach of the 
steamer City of Tokio, startled the city from the spell of 
suspense that had prevailed for three days, and transformed 
idle throngs that were lounging about the streets into ex- 



786 GRANT'S- TOUR 

cited and hurrying crowds. Bells began to ring, steam- 
whistles to scream, and the thunder of cannon to reverber- 
ate over the hills and harbor. Thousands of men, women, 
and children,'on foot, in carriages and on horseback, began 
to pour out in the direction of Presidio Heights, Point 
Lobos, Telegraph Hill, and every other eminence in the 
vicinity, eager to catch the first glance of the incoming 
ship bearing the guest for whose reception so great prepa- 
rations had been made and whose arrival had been so anx- 
iously anticipated. Crowds hurried towards the wharves 
where the steamers and yachts that were to take part in 
the nautical pageant were lying. 

Immediately on receipt of the intelligence that the 
steamer was nearing port, the Recej^tion Committee re- 
paired to the tug Milieu Griffith, lying, with steam up, 
at the Pacific mail-dock, and at once started to meet the 
incoming steamer. The Millen Griffith stood well out to 
sea, and several miles outside the Heads met the City of 
Tokio coming in. The tug drew alongside, and the first 
one who went on board the steamer was Ulysses S. Grant, 
Jr., who affectionately received his parents, and soon after 
the staid and handsome son, with his arm around his 
mother, was pointing out to her the principal features of 
the landscape. 

The General and his suite were on the bridge of the 
steamer, and the committee, hurrying on board, were con- 
ducted immediately to him. About the same time, the 
government steamer McPherson, with General McDowell 
and staff, ranged alongside, and the party came on board. 
No formalities were indulged in ; but crowding around 
General Grant, the committee and the General and officers 
were greeted with hearty shakes of the hand, the band on 
one of the steamers playing "Home Again." General 
Grant was then welcomed to the Pacific coast. 



I 



AROUND THE WORLD. 787 

While this was transjDiring, the General Committee of 
Arrangements, with several thousand invited guests, as- 
sembled on board the large, sidewheel Pacific mail-steamer 
China and a number of smaller steamers, while tugs took 
squadrons of the San Francisco and Pacific yacht clubs 
in tow and started down the channel. 

In the meantime, it seemed as though the whole jooi^u- 
lation of the city — men, women, and children — had sought 
positions from which a view of the naval pageant could be 
obtained. Every eminence commanding the channel was 
black with assembled thousands. Telegraph Hill was a 
living mass of human bodies, and the heights beyond 
Presidio, the Clay Street Hill, the sea wall at North Point, 
and every j^ier-head were covered with sj^ectators. 

The sun was declining in the west as the steamers and 
yachts, gay with bunting, moved down the channel. Low 
clouds hung along the western horizon. Mount Tamau- 
lipas and the distant mountains north of the Bay were 
veiled in a mist, and Mission Hill and the seaward heights 
of the Peninsula were shrouded in a fog, but the channel 
was unobstructed, and the bold outlines of the Golden 
Gate rose sharj^ly against the sky, while the Bay itself, with 
the islands and shores of Alameda and Contra Costa, were 
bathed in sunlight. From every flagstaff in the city flags 
were flying, and the shijDping along the city front was 
brilliantly decked with ensigns, festooned flags and stream- 
ers. The impatient crowds that covered the hilltops stood 
straining their eyes to catch the first glimpse of the Tokio. 
A hundred times the cry was raised, " There she comes !" 
as chance arrivals came in view between the Heads. 

It was half-past five o'clock when a puff of white smoke 
from seaward, from off the earthworks back of and above 
Fort Point, and the booming of a heavy gun announced 
that the steamer was near at hand. Another and another 



788 GRANT'S TOUR 

followed in rapid succession. Fort Point next joined in 
the cannonade, firing with both casemate and barbette guns, 
and the battery at Lime Point added its thunders to the 
voice of welcome. In a few moments the entrance to the 
harbor was veiled in wreaths of smoke, and as the batteries 
of Angel Island, Black Point and Alcatraz opened fire in 
succession, the whole channel was soon shrouded in clouds 
from their rapid discharges. For some time the position 
of the approaching ship could not be discovered, but 
shortly before six o'clock the outlines of the huge hull of 
the City of Tokio loomed through the obscurity of smoke 
and rapidly approaching shades of evening lit up by the 
flashes of guns, and in a few moments she glided into full 
view, surrounded by a fleet of steamers and tugs, gay with 
flags and crowded with guests, while the yacht squadron 
brought up the rear, festooned from deck to truck with 
brilliant bunting. Cheer after cheer burst from the assem- 
bled thousands as the vessels slowly rounded Telegraph 
Hill, and were taken up by the crowds on the wharves and 
rolled around the city front, hats and handkerchiefs being 
waved in the air. The United States steamer Monterey, 
lying in the stream, added the roar of her guns to the 
general welcome, and the screaming of hundreds of steam- 
whistles announced that the City of Tokio had reached her 
anchorage. 

The crowds that had assembled on the hills and along 
the city now, with a common impulse, began to pour along 
towards the ferry landing at the foot of Market Street, 
where General Grant was to land. The sidewalks were 
blocked with hurrying pedestrians, and the streets with 
carriages conveying the committees. The steamers and 
yachts made haste to land their passengers, and in a few 
minutes the vicinity of the ferry landing was literally 
jammed with people, extending for blocks along Market 



AROUND THE WORLD. 789 

Street and the water front, just in front of the landing, 
the entrances to which were closed and guarded. A space 
was cleared by the police and marshals, into which hun- 
dreds of carriages for use of the guests were crowded, and 
outside of that space line after line of troops and civic 
organizations were ranged, while the outside constantly 
increasing throng surged and p>ressed, excited and enthu- 
siastic, cheering at intervals, and waiting impatiently for a 
first glimpse at the city's honored guest. Within the gates 
of the ferry-house were assembled the gentlemen charged 
with the duty of the immediate reception of General Grant. 

About seven. General Grant landed from the ferry-boat 
Oakland, according to arrangement, at the foot of Market 
Street, and was received by the Mayor and Governor, also 
by Governor-elect George C. Perkins. Governor Irwin 
was accompanied by his staff. 

The Mayor then addressed the General as follows : — 

Geneeal Geaxt. — As Mayor of the city of Sail Francisco, 
I have the honor and the pleasure to welcome yon on your return 
to your native country. Some time has passed since you departed 
from the Atlantic shore to seek the relief which a long period in 
your country's service had made necessarj^, but during this absence 
the people of the United States have not forgotten you. They 
have read with interest the accounts of your voyages by sea, and 
travels by laiid, round the world, and they have observed with 
great pleasure the honors you have received in the different coun- 
tries which you have visited, and the universal recognition which 
3^our brilliant career, as a soldier and an American citizen, has 
obtained. They have felt proud of you, and at the same time of 
their country, which you have so fitly represented. 

And now, sir, you are again on your native soil, and the thou- 
sands who here greet you remember that your home was once in 
this city. This bay, these hills, the pleasant homes about us are 
all familiar to you. Great changes, it is true, have taken place. 
The young city is now the rival of cities which were old when 



790 GRANT'S TOUR 

its history began. But tlie men to wliom this marvellous pros- 
perity is due in those early days were your personal associates 
and friends, and many of them are here to-day waiting anxiously 
to take you by the hand once more. 

It is a pleasing incident of your journey that when leaving 
your country, at the ancient city of Philadelphia, Mayor Stokley 
expressed the hope of that city for your safe journej^ and a happy 
return. It is now my privilege to express the joy of San Fran- 
cisco that the hope of her elder sister has been realized. The 
city desires to receive you as an old and honored resident and 
friend, returning after a long absence, and to extend to jou such 
courtesies as may be agreeable to you, and in obedience to such 
desire, which extends through all classes, I tender you the free- 
dom of the city and its hospitalities. In the short time allowed 
to us we have arranged a reception in your honor, and ask that 
for an hour you will permit us to present our people to you, and 
we beg that while you remain in the city — yourself, your family, 
and your travelling companions — you will be its guests. 

Permit me, in conclusion, to express the wish of each and 
every one of us for the future happiness and prosperity of your- 
self, and every member of your family. 

General Grant responded in a few brief sentences, re- 
turning thanks for tlie welcome extended to him. He was 
then conducted to a carriage, Mayor Bryant accompanying 
him, while tlie various committees and other gentlemen in 
attendance repaired to their own carriages. The gates of 
the dock were then thrown open, and the vehicles moved for- 
ward, and took their places in line. As the carriage con- 
taining General Grant made its appearance, cheer after 
cheer went up from thousands of throats, while the surging 
crowd pressed forward and swayed from side to side in 
efforts to obtain a j^assing glance of the familiar lineaments 
of the great captain. With the greatest difficulty a pass- 
age was opened, and the procession was formed. 

Amid the tremendous cheering of the crowd, discharges 
of cannon, ringing of bells, and screaming of whistles, the 



AROUND THE WORLD. 791 

procession started up Market Street. Bonfires blazed out 
at the street corners, illuminations lit up every window, 
and the glare of Roman candles and electric lights made 
the broad thoroughfare as bright as day. Under a con- 
tinuous archway of flags, banners, festoons, and draperies, 
the procession moved up Market Street to Montgomery, and 
turned down the latter street. Crowds blocked the side- 
walk; cheer after cheer rolled along the whole line of 
march, and almost drowned the martial strains of the nu- 
merous bands. Broad ensigns tossed in the night wind, 
glowing with the light of fire and the glare of rockets and 
fireworks. A light mist hovering over the city reflected 
thq light of the fireworks and illumination until the heav- 
ens seemed ablaze. Continuing the march the procession 
moved through Montgomery Avenue, and then to Kearney 
Street. Here, if possible, the crowds were still more dense 
and enthusiastic, and the display of fireworks, electric 
lights, lime lights, and every conceivable means of illu- 
mination increased the brilliancy. On arriving at Market 
Street the procession moved up a few blocks, and counter- 
marched to the Palace Hotel. Here a magnificent arch, 
forty feet in height, sjoanned New Montgomery Street, 
blazoned with the national colors, and bearing the inscrip- 
tion : — 



"WELCOME TO GRANT." 



At this point the carriage containing the General was 
drawn up, while the procession marched in review, cheer 
after cheer rending the air as division after division passed 
by. At the conclusion of the review the various organi- 
zations were dismissed, and General Grant was conducted 
to his quarters in the Palace Hotel, which had been es- 
pecially prepared and furnished for his reception. 



792 GRANT'S TOUR 

The scene within the immense court of the Palace Ho- 
tel was of surpassing beauty. Electric lights of 500 gas- 
jets lit up the vast interior with a brilliant glow, and the 
dense throngs that packed the court and filled the spacious 
balconies and corridors surged to and fro in anxious ex- 
pectancy of the coming guest, whom the packed streets had 
detained. 

At ten o'clock the wide doors were thrown open, and a 
barouche containing General Grant was driven within the 
building. He immediately dismounted, and, crowding his 
way through the packed mass of human beings, was hur- 
ried to his room. As he alighted, Mme Fabbri and a 
chorus of 500 voices opened from one of the balconies 
with an ode of welcome. 

The crowd rushed after General Grant when he dis- 
mounted, leaving the singers for a moment almost without 
an audience, but being stopped in their mad course by a 
force of police who blocked the way, they returned to the 
court, being reassured by the announcement that the Gen- 
eral would appear on one of the balconies after he had time 
to take off his overcoat. 

After a chorus was rendered. General Grant, in response 
to repeated calls, appeared on the balcony of the fourth 
floor, and bowed to the shouting crowd, immediately retir- 
ing. Still, the enthusiastic populace thronged the court, 
and refused to leave. Finally, Mayor Bryant appeared, 
and announced that as soon as the General had finished 
his dinner he would show himself. In a few minutes Gen- 
eral Grant appeared amid deafening and long-continued 
shouts. Mayor Bryant called the crowd to order, and the 
General, mounting a chair which was passed over the heads 
of the surrounding crowd, was again greeted with a succes- 
sion of cheers. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 793 

AYlieii the noise subsided, lie addressed tliem as fol- 
lows : — 

Fellow-Citizens of Sax Fraxcisco. — After twent3--five 
years' absence, I am glad to meet you, and assure you of my cor- 
dial thanks for tbe kind greeting you have given me. I shall 
stay in your city long enough to greet you more fully. 

The General then withdrew amid prolonged and tre- 
mendous cheering, and the crowd at length reluctantly 
scattered. 

Concerning his welcome, an eye-witness says: — "The 
feeling of enthusiasm throughout the city was confined to 
no locality and to no race — the English, French, Spanish, 
Spanish- Americans, and Germans being equally energetic 
with the native-born citizens in their demonstrations. Nor 
were the Chinese asleep to the important occasion. Aroused 
from their habitual lethargy in all things disconnected with 
their private interests, their dragon was brought out and 
mingled with the ' Stars and Stripes ' on their best dwell- 
ings, and their theatres and Joss-houses were profusely 
ornamented in their peculiar st3de. As the result of all 
this, the residences and business places of San Francisco 
were decorated beyond anything ever seen within its limits 
before, and the variety and brilliancy of colors which met 
the eye at every turn were almost dazzling." 

On Monday, General Grant by special request reviewed 
the Stockton Guard in the court of the Palace Hotel. 
During General Grant's stay in his apartments he received 
calls from a number of distinguished gentlemen, among 
whom were Congressmen D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana ; 
George Hazleton, of Wisconsin, and J. F. Jorgenson, of 
Virginia ; also from H. F. Page, of California ; J. A. Wil- 
liamson, Commissioner of the General Land Ofiice ; Judge 
Field, of the United States Supreme Court, and a number 
of others. 

46 



794 GRANT'S TOUR 

General and Mrs. Grant, in conversation, expressed 
their appreciation of the handsome reception accorded 
them, and were particularly impressed with the order and 
good conduct and bearing of the joeople throughout the 
demonstration, and the entire absence of anything like 
rude crowding from the thousands who were gathered to 
welcome them. On Tuesday, the Methodist Conference, in 
session at San Jose, called in a body upon General and Mrs. 
Grant. Bishop Haven made an address of welcome, and 
a formal presentation to the General and Mrs. Grant fol- 
lowed. An hour was taken up before the presentation was 
concluded. The preparations made around the new City 
Hall for the formal presentation of General and Mrs. 
Grant to the citizens of San Francisco were of an elabo- 
rate character. The Mayor's office, which was used as a 
reception-room, was handsomely draped with flags. At 
half-past twelve o'clock a crowd began to assemble in front 
of the McAllister Street entrance, and shortly after the 
passage, steps, and every point of advantage were thronged 
with people. At the Market Street side of the building 
there was also a large crowd awaiting the arrival of the 
veterans to fire salutes from the sand-lots. As the hour 
for the reception approached, the crowd grew denser, filling 
up the corridors and entrances of the building. A squad 
of thirty policemen was detailed to keep the joassages open. 
At a quarter to one the veterans — Federal and Confederate 
— arrived upon the sand-lots, taking up a position near 
Market Street. The first gun was fired at ten minutes to 
one, the other thirty-seven guns succeeded each other at 
intervals of one minute. The people massed along the 
line of Market Street. After the salute the veterans fell 
into line, entered the corridor, and marching down its 
length countermarched and took up a position awaiting the 
arrival of the General. A few minutes later the ex-Pres- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 795 

ident and party arrived at tlie McAllister Street entrance 
and were greeted with cheers. The windows of the houses 
opposite and the housetops were crowded with people, who 
waved handkerchiefs and sent up cheer after cheer as the 
party alighted. As the General proceeded along the pave- 
ment, escorted by the Mayor, the enthusiasm broke out 
afresh along the corridor. Running from the lower en- 
trance to the Mayor's office were ranged the veterans, 
posted in two lines. Their commander, Colonel Lyons, 
ste23ped forward as General Grant and the Mayor reached 
the corridor, and said, "Now, boys, three cheers for 
your old commander!" The veterans responded with en- 
thusiastic hurrahs. The party then j)i'Oceeded to the 
Mayor's office, where a committee of ladies were waiting to 
receive Mrs. Grant and assist her. Mrs. Grant did not 
arrive until some time after the General, who took up his 
230sition in the centre of the room. The south-east corner 
of the room was assigned to the ladies. 

Directions were then issued to admit the multitude. 
After a few of the invited guests had been jDresented to the 
General the crowd filed in, shook hands with the city's 
guests, and passed out at the Market Street entrance after 
presentation to Mrs. Grant. All the afternoon a constant 
stream of visitors poured through the apartments, and all 
were greeted with a hearty shake of the hand, the General 
not adopting the suggestion of the Mayor that hand-shak- 
ing might be dispensed with on account of the great rush, 
and expressing his opinion that he could " fight it out on 
that line all summer." 

Previous to the salute on the sand-lots, the General re- 
viewed the veterans at their rendezvous in Mechanics' Pa- 
vilion. 

General Grant visited the Produce Exchange on 
Wednesday, and witnessed a grand display of cereals 



796 GRANT'S TOUR 

of the Pacific coast, wliicli no city in the world could 
probably excel. He was much gratified at the exhi- 
bition, and expressed in a few words his congratulations. 
After that, accompanied by General McDowell, a Govern- 
ment tug conveyed him to all the forts in the Bay, where 
he was received with military honors. Upon landing at 
Black Point, General McDowell's headquarters, the party 
was greeted by a salute, and the troops were drawn uj) in 
line to receive General Grant. At General McDowell's 
residence a collation was prepared, and a formal reception 
tendered to the distinguished guest. Among the promi- 
nent citizens present were Governor Irwin and Governor- 
elect Perkins, ex-Governor Stanford, ex-Governor Low, 
Senator Booth, Senator Sharon, ex-Senator Stewart, Jus- 
tice S. J. Field, Judge Ogden Hoffman, D. O. Mills, and 
other distinguished citizens, generally accompanied by 
their ladies. 

Before the reception began, the General was visited by 
the chief representatives of the Chinese community, headed 
by their counsel and the Chinese Vice-Consul, who read 
the following congratulatory welcome : — 

General, we feel deeply gratified that we were permitted to 
meet you face to face, and express to you how sincerely we ap- 
preciate the fact that you have visited our country and consulted 
with its rulers, and become familiar with the important features 
of both government and people. It gives unbounded pleasure to 
learn that you received a warm welcome, commensurate with the 
high esteem your noble deeds fully entitled you to at the hands 
of the Chinese authorities and people. Let us hope that your 
visit will have a tendency to bring the people of the oldest and 
youngest nations in still closer friendly and commercial relations. 
The Chinese of California join with your countrymen in the ac- 
claim " Welcome home," and add the sentiments that you may 
live long and, like the great Washington, be first in war, first in 
peace, and first in the hearts of your countrymen. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 797 

To this was added by the dignitaries : — 

To General Grant. — We join our voices to prolong the 
p£ean which has girdled the earth, wafted o'er seas and continents. 
Praises to the warrior and statesman most graciously presented 
by the Chinese of California. 

The General replied : — 

Gentlemen. — I am very glad to meet the representatives of 
the Chinese community and receive this address. I have, as you 
say, j ust returned from a visit to your country. It was a most 
interesting visit — one that I shall always remember, and espe- 
cially becanse of the kindness and hospitality shown me by the 
people and the authorities of China. For that I am grateful, and 
glad of an opportunity of expressing that gratitude so soon after 
my arrival at home, and hope that the remark you make about 
China breaking down the seclusion in which she has been shrouded 
for ages will prove true in all senses, and that China will continue 
to draw near to her the sympathy and the trade of the civilized 
world. The future of China will largely depend upon her policy 
in this respect. A liberal policy will enlarge your commerce 
and confer great commercial advantages upon the outside world. 
I hope that America will have a large share in this. Again I 
thank you. 

After presenting the address, Colonel Bee said that 
Mrs. Grant had done more to break down the sjDirit of 
domestic exclusiveness that reigned in China than the 
wamor had done, by the honors shown her in Tientsin. 
He begged that she would accept a small casket of ivory 
as a memento of the occasion. The recejDtion lasted till 
six o'clock, the jDarty returned to the city, and in the even- 
ing attended Baldwin's Theatre. 

The announcement that General Grant would visit the 
Baldwin Theatre sufficed to pack the building to its utmost 
capacity. The proscenium box designed for the occuj^ancy 
of the General and his party was handsomely decorated 



798' GRANT'S TOUR 

with flowers and national colors. The j^rogramme for the 
evening comprised the " balcony " and other scenes from 
"Romeo and Juliet " and " Diplomacy." General Grant 
and party arrived shortly before nine o'clock, between the 
acts. A great crowd gathered at the entrance, cheering 
vociferously as he alighted. On making his appearance 
in the box, the audience rose to their feet, and cheered and 
applauded for several minutes, while \h% orchestra struck 
up " See the Conquering Hero Comes," followed by a med- 
ley of national airs, accented by discharges of musketry 
from behind the scenes. 

The following telegraphic despatches passed between 
Mayor Stokley, of Philadelphia, and General Grant : — 

Office of the Mayor, ] 

City of Philadelphia, Sept. 22, 1879. f 
General U. S. Grant, San Francisco : — 

When yon departed from Philadelphia, I bade yon Godspeed 
npon yonr jonrney, and now desire to congratulate you on your 
safe return to your native land, and to assure you that our citizens 
anxiously await your arrival here to extend a hearty welcome. 

WILLIAM S. STOKLEY, 

Mayor of Philadelphia. 

San Francisco, Sept. 23, 1879. 
William S. Stokley, Mayor of Philadelphia : — 

Thanks for your kind despatch, and for the good wishes you 
express in the name of Philadelphia. I cannot now name a time 
for visiting Philadelphia, but will let you know. 

U. S. GKANT. 

GENEBAL GBANT AT OAKLAND. 

Oakland, sometimes termed the "Athens of the Pacific " 
by its residents, is to San Francisco what Brooklyn was to 
New York twenty-five years ago. It differs from Brooklyn 
at this time only in its lack of large business and extensive 
manufactures- It is essentially the bedroom of San Fran- 



AROUND THE WORLD. 799 

CISCO, and, like WashiDgton, is a city of magnificent dis- 
tances. Many fine houses line the principal avenues. The 
place wears an air of repose and elegance in remarkable 
contrast to the hurry and bustle of the sister city across 
the Bay. A line of ferry-boats ply between the two cities. 
The occasion of General Grant's visit to Oakland brought 
3n immense crowd, not from San Francisco alone, but from 
Alameda, Santa Clara, and Contra Costa counties. Trains 
and ferry-steamers from every quarter were crowded, and 
an hour before noon there were fully 100,000 people in the 
city, 60,000 more than the regular population. When the 
General landed at the foot of Broadway there was a gen- 
eral ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. The mag- 
nificent principal avenue of the city was crowded with jje- 
destrians. Numerous country wagons also, bearing loads 
of grangers, filled the causeways. The decorations were 
fully as elaborate as those of San Francisco, and had the ad- 
ditional advantage of the recej)tion occurring by daylight. 
The procession was marked by the usual characteristics 
of such displays. The local police force was at the head, 
followed by infantry, dragoons, civil societies, and invited 
guests in carriages. By far the most touching and pleas- 
ing feature was the ovation from the school-children. The 
procession passed through Fourteenth Street, where, opj^o- 
site the City Hall, nearly 5,000 school-children were as- 
sembled on either side of the street. The j^rocession halted, 
and General Grant alighted from his carriage and passed 
arm in arm with the President of the Board of School 
Directors, with bared head, down on one side of the street, 
returning on the opposite side to his carriage. The chil- 
dren cheered, waved their tiny banners, and strewed his 
path with flowers ; and, as he joassed, showered bouquets 
upon him in profusion. The General bowed and smiled 
as he passed along, while among the elder spectators there 



800 GRANT'S TOUR 

were not wanting evidences of emotion. After tins demon- 
stration, the General joined the procession and proceeded 
to the Pavilion, where he received the people. Mrs. Grant 
received the ladies at Lubbs' Hotel. 

At seven minutes past eleven o'clock, the Amador left 
the wharf at San Francisco. On board were Mayor Bry- 
ant, H. F. Page, M. D. Poruck, the Japanese Consul ; 
Colonel Stephenson, Judge Hoffman, and other leading 
citizens, together with the Oakland Peception Committee, 
consisting of L. G. Cole, David Howes, J. W. Babcock, 
J. West Martin, W. W. Crane, G. N. Fox, Captain Little, 
Dr. L. H. Carey, W. E. Hall, L. L. Alexander, A. C. 
Henry, J. W. Badger, A. K. Harmon, and J. P. Harden- 
burg. As the boat approached the Oakland wharf, a sa- 
lute of twenty-one guns was fired, under the direction of 
the Citizens' Committee. The wharf and the vessels lying 
alongside were gayly decorated. A large banner, on which 
was inscribed the word " Welcome," was hung across the 
entrance to the wharf. The party was met at the boat by 
Mayor Andrus and the city officials. 

An address of welcome was delivered by the Mayor as 
follows : — 

GeivTEKal Geaxt. — Your merited ovations have encircled the 
world. They have been as grand and varied as the nations that 
have offered them, and yet, among them all, there has been no 
more honest, sincere, and cordial welcome than the city of Oak- 
laud now extends to j^ou. This is pre-eminently a city of homes 
and families, of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of 
churches and schools. There is no tie more sacred than that of 
family. At the family altar the tires of liberty are first kindled, 
and there patriotism is born. Love of home, of kindred, and of 
country, is the source and foundation of our welcome to }■ ou, de- 
fender of our firesides and families. 

The Mayor then handed the General a roll containing 
resolutions of greeting, adopted by the city authorities. 



AROUND THE WORLD. 801 

The General was then conducted to a carriao-e in waitins:. 
Carriages with the City Council, Citizens' Committee, 
Board of Supervisors, and other citizens followed. When 
all was in readiness, the carriage containing General Grant 
and Mayor Andrus filed through the gates and passed the 
line of companies on review until it reached the head of 
the procession. 

Suspended across the avenue where the children were 
gathered were three banners, the first inscribed "Welcome 
to General Grant, the City's Guest." The second contained 
this quotation from General Grant's Des Moines speech : — 
" The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which 
is to preserve us a free nation." In the third Avas the 
motto, " We strew these roses beneath the feet of him who 
saved us from defeat." 

After dinner at Lubb's Hotel, General Grant addressed 
the throng as follows: — 

Gentlemen of the Two Armies and jSTaatles. — I am very 
proud of the welcome you have given me to-day. I am partic- 
ularly happy to see the good- will and cordiality existing between 
the soldiers of the two armies, and I have an abiding faith that 
this good feeling will always exist. Thus united, we have noth- 
ing to fear from any nation in the world. I am satisfied, from 
my travels in foreign lands, that no country will wish to meet us 
as a united people. They will be perfectly willing to do us jus- 
tice without an appeal to arms, and as that is all that Americans 
want, I am confident that our country has a long career of peace 
and prosperity before her. 

Soon after the speech, the General took the cars at 
Brooklyn station to return to the city. While waiting 
a few minutes for the train, an immense crowd gathered 
round, anxious to get a last glimjDse of the city's guest, and 
a number of ladies made their way through all obstructions 
to take him by the hand. A little girl who could not suc- 
ceed in reaching him, on account of the crowd, was lifted 



802 GRANT'S TOUR. 

above the heads of the people and passed along to the Gen- 
eral, who took her in his arms and kissed her, amid the 
tumultuous cheers of the surrounding thousands. 

A large number of citizens accompanied the party to 
the wharf, taking leave of the General as he embarked on 
the ferry to return to the city. 

A very distinguished party assembled at the Palace 
Hotel, at the press banquet in honor of John Russell 
Young, the companion of General Grant throughout his 
journey and correspondent of the New York Herald, 
whose letters to that journal have received the universal 
commendations of the entire press. Colonel John P. 
Jackson, of the Post, presided. Mr. Young was on his 
right and General Grant on his left. There were present 
to do honor to the guests General McDowell, Governor 
Irwin, Senators Sharon and Jones, Mayor Bryant and the 
best representatives of San Francisco society. as the 

first public entertainment at which the General ^.3d to 
be perfectly free. It was a tribute of respect to a public 
journalist whose talents the fraternity here appreciated and 
honored. 

The welcome accorded to General Grant upon his return 
was an enthusiastic one — one well worthy to end the most 
remarkable journey in the world's history, and beside which 
the famous journey of Csesar sinks into insignificance. It 
might be truly called a triumphant march of pe tce, since 
upon every hand he scattered the seeds of peace, jrotherly 
love, and national harmony. It has certainly d yue much 
towards creating more friendly feelings between die coun- 
tries visited and our own. God grant that it may lead to 
the dawning of that day in the which "men shall beat 
their swords into ploughshares and their spears into 
pruning-hooks," " and the nations shall learn war no 
more." 

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